Pilgrim
Sara Douglass
The second book of the Wayfarerer Redemption, an enthralling continuation of The Axis trilogy, by the bestselling Australian author Sara DouglassBy leaching Drago’s latent Icari magic the Time Keeper Demons have burst through the StarGate, bringing an apocalypse down upon Tencendor as they unleash plagues of pain, terror and madness on man and beast. Overhead the Hawkchildren swarm the skies, hungry for prey.Sheltered within the forest of Minstrelsea, the rulers of Tencendor desperately search for a way to fight back, but with the StarGate destroyed the protective magic of the StarDance has been lost forever. Now, even the Gods are vulnerable to the demon’s onslaught. Prophecy decrees that Tencendor’s only hope lies with the StarSon, but Caelum’s magic is gone too.Wracked with guilt over his unwitting betrayal Drago pursues the demons. Unless he can aid the StarSon and prevent the resurrection of the demon’s master, Queteb the Midday Demon, the once beautiful land of Tencendor will descend into a living hell.
SARA DOUGLASS
Pilgrim
Book Two of the Wayfarer Redemption
Contents
Cover (#uc9b4047d-93c6-5ac2-a0e5-64000ce5dedf)
Title Page (#ud3fe221f-9213-5d28-aca4-acaac6cc5c2e)
Map (#ub15ff5cc-9380-5146-ad4a-5a1c6fb028b6)
Prologue (#u1ade62d0-b0c1-57df-a1f5-f3af4c1f0241)
1. Questions of Conveyance (#ua3e943b5-0c29-5907-ae79-b0897e1025c1)
2. The Dreamer (#u56364bf7-b701-549e-bdd3-22d333c6e0ab)
3. The Feathered Lizard (#u7e3afcdc-6f8e-55b1-b0ba-039b5e552abb)
4. What To Do? (#uc1f389bc-47ad-5b16-a6db-2a445e189e86)
5. The Prodigal Son’s Welcome (#u1b7cabaa-b4b0-54dc-9934-f7f3e67e251a)
6. The Rosewood Staff (#u08196f86-9f00-5ad4-8d6b-b8b5491a687e)
7. The Emperor’s Horses (#u31bd318c-c77c-550f-9fd0-ec10f89cfc32)
8. Towards Cauldron Lake (#u40311d24-8db3-55b4-90da-9dcaea75f20a)
9. Cauldron Lake (#ue3e8e439-386b-5fb4-b237-2e6a9f3a7d34)
10. The Crystal Forest (#u34d69bec-f803-50cc-ae6e-c24b2a516857)
11. GhostTree Camp (#u0a1b890c-3130-5019-a1a0-546b9d0c00d4)
12. The Hawkchilds (#u6e7454d4-3c72-56be-a160-7fc3123ea28e)
13. The Waiting Stars (#ud6322961-be45-5e3a-9b0f-2be147524e5d)
14. In the Chamber of the Enemy (#ud6a24080-573e-5c1b-a8df-3096364a848c)
15. Hidden Conversations (#u07c453b1-a674-5090-9cd1-241cc0ec57fd)
16. Destruction Accepted (#ud2f49dad-edb4-5e4a-b80a-77bc13be00f6)
17. The Donkeys’ Tantrum (#ua9d7d348-7ee2-52ba-b420-573e6657e085)
18. Shade (#u2b3d8f25-50ee-5e02-8758-b3397e57b108)
19. The SunSoar Curse (#u78d7759f-6de1-5ae8-b5e1-a2b7d8ca75c1)
20. Sicarius (#u5775f911-361c-50ed-bec4-e38aa83555c9)
21. Why? Why? Why? (#litres_trial_promo)
22. Arrival at the Minaret Peaks (#litres_trial_promo)
23. The Arcness Plains (#litres_trial_promo)
24. The Dark Trap (#litres_trial_promo)
25. Askam (#litres_trial_promo)
26. The Hall of the Stars (#litres_trial_promo)
27. Drago’s Ancient Relics (#litres_trial_promo)
28. Sunken Castles (#litres_trial_promo)
29. The Mountain Trails (#litres_trial_promo)
30. Home Safe (#litres_trial_promo)
31. The Fun of the Blooding (#litres_trial_promo)
32. A Seal Hunt … of Sorts (#litres_trial_promo)
33. Of Sundry Travellers (#litres_trial_promo)
34. Poor, Useless Fool (#litres_trial_promo)
35. Andeis Voyagers (#litres_trial_promo)
36. Gorkenfort (#litres_trial_promo)
37. The Lesson of the Sparrow (#litres_trial_promo)
38. The Sunken Keep (#litres_trial_promo)
39. The Mother of Races (#litres_trial_promo)
40. Murkle Mines (#litres_trial_promo)
41. An Angry Foam of Stars (#litres_trial_promo)
42. The Lake of Life (#litres_trial_promo)
43. The Bridges of Tencendor (#litres_trial_promo)
44. Aftermath (#litres_trial_promo)
45. The Twenty Thousand (#litres_trial_promo)
46. The Secret in the Basement (#litres_trial_promo)
47. StarSon (#litres_trial_promo)
48. Companionship and Respect (#litres_trial_promo)
49. Sigholt’s Gift (#litres_trial_promo)
50. Sanctuary (#litres_trial_promo)
51. A SunSoar Reunion … of Sorts (#litres_trial_promo)
52. Of What Can’t Be Rescued (#litres_trial_promo)
53. The Enchanted Song Book (#litres_trial_promo)
54. The Cruelty of Love (#litres_trial_promo)
55. An Enchantment Made Visible (#litres_trial_promo)
56. The Field of Flowers (#litres_trial_promo)
57. Gorken Pass (#litres_trial_promo)
58. The Deep Blue Cloak of Betrayal (#litres_trial_promo)
59. A Fate Deserved? (#litres_trial_promo)
60. Of Salvation (#litres_trial_promo)
61. The Bloodied Rose Wind (#litres_trial_promo)
62. A Song of Innocence (#litres_trial_promo)
63. The Fields of Resurrection … and the Streets of Death (#litres_trial_promo)
64. The Doorways (#litres_trial_promo)
65. Evacuation (#litres_trial_promo)
66. Cats in the Corridor! (#litres_trial_promo)
67. The Emptying (#litres_trial_promo)
68. Mountain, Forest and Marsh (#litres_trial_promo)
69. The Dark Tower (#litres_trial_promo)
70. The Rape of Tencendor (#litres_trial_promo)
71. The Hunt (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Glossary (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Sara Douglass (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Map (#ulink_dfb9d514-8047-5d1d-8e60-6f91d524035c)
Prologue (#ulink_66dbafd8-4a82-5854-aa69-34c955eeba4b)
The lieutenant pushed his fork back and forth across the table, back and forth, back and forth, his eyes vacant, his mind and heart a thousand galaxies away. Scrape … scrape … scrape.
“For heaven’s sake, Chris, will you stop that? It’s driving me crazy!”
The lieutenant gripped the fork in his fist, and his companion tensed, thinking Chris would fling it across the dull, black metal table towards him.
But Chris’ hand suddenly relaxed, and he managed a tight, half-apologetic smile. “Sorry. It’s just that this … this …”
“We only have another two day spans, mate, and then we wake the next shift for their stint at uselessness.”
Chris’ fingers traced gently over the surface of the table. It vibrated. Everything on the ship vibrated.
“I can’t bloody wait for another stretch of deep sleep,” he said quietly, his eyes flickering over to Commander Devereaux sitting at a keyboard by the room’s only porthole. “Unlike him.”
His fellow officer nodded. Perhaps thirty-five rotations ago, waking from their allotted span of deep sleep, the retiring crew had reported a strange vibration within the ship. No mechanical or structural problem … the ship was just vibrating.
And then … then they’d found that the ship was becoming a little sluggish in responding to commands, and after five or six day spans it refused to respond to their commands at all.
The other three ships in the fleet had similar problems — at least, that’s what their last communiques had reported. The Ark crew were aware of the faint phosphorescent outlines in the wake of the other ships, but that was all now. So here they were, hurtling through deep space, in ships that responded to no command, and with cargo that the crews preferred not to think about. When they volunteered for this mission, hadn’t they been told that once they’d found somewhere to “dispose” of the cargo they could come home?
But now, the crew of The Ark wondered, what would be disposed of? The cargo? Or them?
It might have helped if the commander had come up with something helpful. But Devereaux seemed peculiarly unconcerned, saying only that the vibrations soothed his soul and that the ships, if they no longer responded to human command, at least seemed to know what they were doing.
And now here he was, tapping at that keyboard as if he actually had a purpose in life. None of them had a purpose any more. They were as good as dead. Everyone knew that. Why not Devereaux?
“What are you doing, sir?” Chris asked. He had picked up the fork again, and it quivered in his over-tight grip.
“I …” Devereaux frowned as if listening intently to something, then his fingers rattled over the keys. “I am just writing this down.”
“Writing what down, sir?” the other officer asked, his voice tight.
Devereaux turned slightly to look at them, his eyes wide. “Don’t you hear it? Lovely music … enchanted music … listen, it vibrates through the ship. Don’t you feel it?”
“No,” Chris said. He paused, uncomfortable. “Why write it down, sir? For who? What is the bloody point of writing it down?”
Devereaux smiled. “I’m writing it down for Katie, Chris. A song book for Katie.”
Chris stared at him, almost hating the man. “Katie is dead, sir. She has been dead at least twelve thousand years. I repeat, what is the fucking point?”
Devereaux’s smile did not falter. He lifted a hand and placed it over his heart. “She lives here, Chris. She always will. And in writing down these melodies, I hope that one day she will live to enjoy the music as much as I do.”
It was then that The Ark, in silent communion with the others, decided to let Devereaux live.
1 Questions of Conveyance (#ulink_84ba1e9e-667b-5b54-9d00-5f222ac0a262)
The speckled blue eagle clung to rocks under the overhang of the river cliffs a league south of Carlon. He shuddered. Nothing in life made sense any more. He had been drifting the thermals, digesting his noonday meal of rats, when a thin grey mist had enveloped him and sent despair stringing through his veins.
He could not fight it, and had not wanted to. His wings crippled with melancholy, he’d plummeted from the sky, uncaring about his inevitable death.
It had seemed the best solution to his useless life.
Chasing rats? Ingesting them. Why?
In his mad, uncaring tumble out of control, the eagle struck the cliff face. The impact drove the breath from him, and he thought it may also have broken one of his breast bones, but even in the midst of despair, the eagle’s talons scrabbled automatically for purchase among the rocks.
And then … then the despair had gone. Evaporated.
The eagle blinked and looked about.
It was cold here in the shadow of the rocks, and he wanted to warm himself in the sun again — but he feared the grey-fingered enemy that awaited him within the thermals. In the open air.
What was this grey miasma? What had caused it?
He cocked his head to one side, his eyes unblinking, considering. Gryphon? Was this their mischief?
No. The Gryphon had long gone, and their evil he would have felt ripping into him, not seeping in with this grey mist’s many-fingered coldness. No, this was something very different.
Something worse.
The sun was sinking now, only an hour or two left until dusk, and the eagle did not want to spend the night clinging to this cliff face.
He cocked his head — the grey haze had evaporated.
With fear — a new sensation for this most ancient and wise of birds — he cast himself into the air. He rose over the Nordra, expecting any minute to be seized again by that consuming despair.
But there was nothing.
Nothing but the rays of the sun glinting from his feathers and the company of the sky.
Relieved, the eagle tilted his wings and headed for his roost under the eaves of one of the towers of Carlon.
He thought he would rest there a day or two. Watch. Discover if the evil would strike again, and, if so, how best to survive it.
The yards of the slaughterhouse situated a half-league west of Tare were in chaos. Two of the slaughtermen had been outside when Sheol’s mid-afternoon despair struck. Now they were dead, trampled beneath the hooves of a thousand crazed livestock. The fourteen other men were still safe, for they had been inside and protected when the TimeKeepers had burst through the Ancient Barrows.
Even though mid-afternoon had passed, and the world was once more left to its own devices, the men did not dare leave the safety of the slaughterhouse.
Animals ringed the building. Sheep, a few pigs, seven old plough horses, and innumerable cattle — all once destined for death and butchery. All staring implacably, unblinkingly, at the doors and windows.
One of the pigs nudged at the door with his snout, and then squealed.
Instantly pandemonium broke out. A horse screamed, and threw itself at the door. The wooden planks cracked, but did not break.
Imitating the horse’s lead, cattle hurled themselves against the door and walls.
The slaughtermen inside grabbed whatever they could to defend themselves.
The walls began to shake under the onslaught. Sheep bit savagely at any protuberance, pulling nails from boards with their teeth, and horses rent at walls with their hooves. All the animals wailed, one continuous thin screech that forced the men inside to drop their weapons and clasp hands to ears, screaming themselves.
The door cracked once more, then split. A brown steer shouldered his way through. He was plump and healthy, bred and fattened to feed the robust appetites of the Tarean citizens. Now he had an appetite himself.
Behind him many score cattle trampled into the slaughterhouse, pigs and sheep squeezing among the legs of their bovine cousins as best they could.
The invasion was many bodied, but it acted with one mind.
The slaughtermen did not die well.
The creatures used only their teeth to kill, not their hooves, and those teeth were grinders, not biters, and so those men were ground into the grave, and it was not a fast nor pleasant descent.
Of all the creatures once destined for slaughter, only the horses did not enter the slaughterhouse and partake of the meal.
They lingered outside in the first of the collecting yards, nervous, unsure, their heads high, their skin twitching. One snorted, then pranced about a few paces. He’d not had this much energy since he’d been a yearling.
A shadow flickered over one of the far fences, then raced across the trampled dirt towards the group of horses. They bunched together, turning to watch the shadow, and then it swept over them and the horses screamed, jerked, and then stampeded, breaking through the fence in their panic.
High above, the flock of Hawkchilds veered to the east and turned their eyes once more to the Ancient Barrows.
Their masters called.
The horses fled, running east with all the strength left in their hearts.
At the slaughterhouse, a brown and cream badger ambled into the bloodied building and stood surveying the carnage.
You have done well, he spoke to those inside. Would you like to exact yet more vengeance?
Sheol tipped back her head and exposed her slim white throat to the afternoon sun. Her fingers spasmed and dug into the rocky soil of the ruined Barrow she sat on, her body arched, and she moaned and shuddered.
A residual wisp of grey miasma still clung to a corner of her lip.
“Sheol?” Raspu murmured and reached out a hand. “Sheol?” At the soft touch of his hand, Sheol’s sapphire eyes jerked open and she bared her teeth in a snarl.
Raspu did not flinch. “Sheol? Did you feast well?”
The entire group of TimeKeeper Demons regarded her curiously, as did StarLaughter sitting slightly to one side with a breast bared, its useless nipple hanging from her undead child’s mouth.
Sheol blinked, and then her snarl widened into a smile, and the reddened tip of her tongue probed slowly at the corners of her lips.
She gobbled down the remaining trace of mist.
“I fed well!” she cried, and leapt to her feet, spinning about in a circle. “Well!”
Her companions stared at her, noting the new flush of strength and power in her cheeks and eyes, and they howled with anticipation. Sheol began an ecstatic caper, and the Demons joined her in dance, holding hands and circling in tight formation through the rubble of earth and rocks that had once been the Barrow. They screamed and shrieked, intoxicated with success.
The Minstrelsea forest, encircling the ruined spaces of the Ancient Barrows, was silent. Listening. Watching.
StarLaughter pulled the material of her gown over her breast and smiled for her friends. It had been eons since they had fed, and she could well understand their excitement. They had sat still and silent as Sheol’s demonic influence had issued from her nostrils and mouth in a steady effluence of misty grey contagion. The haze had coalesced about her head for a moment, blurring her features, and had then rippled forth with the speed of thought over the entire land of Tencendor.
Every soul it touched — Icarii, human, bird or animal — had been infected, and Sheol had fed generously on each one of them.
Now how well Sheol looked! The veins of her neck throbbed with life, and her teeth were whiter and her mouth redder than StarLaughter had ever seen. Stars, but the others must be beside themselves in the wait for their turn!
StarLaughter rose slowly to her feet, her child clasped protectively in her hands. “When?” she said.
The Demons stopped and stared at her.
“We need to wait a few days,” Raspu finally replied.
“What?” StarLaughter cried. “My son —”
“Not before then,” Sheol said, and took a step towards StarLaughter. “We all need to feed, and once we have grown the stronger for the feeding we can dare the forest paths.”
She cast her eyes over the distant trees and her lip curled. “We will move during our time, and on our terms.”
“You don’t like the forest?” StarLaughter said.
“It is not dead,” Barzula responded. “And it is far, far too gloomy.”
“But —” StarLaughter began.
“Hush,” Rox said, and he turned flat eyes her way. “You ask too many questions.”
StarLaughter closed her mouth, but she hugged her baby tightly to her, and stared angrily at the Demons. Sheol smiled, and patted StarLaughter on the shoulder. “We are tense, Queen of Heaven. Pardon our ill manners.”
StarLaughter nodded, but Sheol’s apology had done little to appease her anger.
“Why travel the forest if you do not like it,” she said. “Surely the waterways would be the safest and fastest way to reach Cauldron Lake.”
“No,” Sheol said. “Not the waterways. We do not like the waterways.”
“Why not?” StarLaughter asked, shooting Rox a defiant look.
“Because the waterways are the Enemy’s construct, and they will have set traps for us,” Sheol said. “Even if they are long dead, their traps are not. The waterways are too closely allied with —”
“Them,” Barzula said.
“— their voyager craft,” Sheol continued through the interruption, “to be safe for us. No matter. We will dare the forests … and survive. After Cauldron Lake the way will be easier. Not only will we be stronger, we will be in the open.”
All of the Demons relaxed at the thought of open territory.
“Soon my babe will live and breath and cry my name,” StarLaughter whispered, her eyes unfocused and her hands digging into the babe’s cool, damp flesh.
“Oh, assuredly,” Sheol said, and shared a secret wink with her companion Demons. She laughed. “Assuredly!”
The other Demons howled in shared merriment, and StarLaughter smiled, thinking she understood.
Then as one the Demons quietened, their faces falling still. Rox turned slowly to the west. “Hark,” he said. “What is that?”
“Conveyance,” said Mot.
If the TimeKeeper Demons did not like to use the waterways, then WolfStar had no such compunction. When he’d slipped away from the Chamber of the Star Gate, he’d not gone to the surface, as had everyone else. Instead, WolfStar had faded back into the waterways. They would protect him as nothing else could; the pack of resurrected children would not be able to find him down here. And WolfStar did not want to be found, not for a long time.
He had something very important to do.
Under one arm he carried a sack with as much tenderness and care as StarLaughter carried her undead infant. The sack’s linen was slightly stained, as if with effluent, and it left an unpleasant odour in WolfStar’s wake.
Niah, or what was left of her.
Niah … WolfStar’s face softened very slightly. She had been so desirable, so strong, when she’d been the First Priestess on the Isle of Mist and Memory. She’d carried through her task — to bear Azhure in the hateful household of Hagen, the Plough Keeper of Smyrton — with courage and sweetness, and had passed that courage and sweetness to their enchanted daughter.
For that courage WolfStar had promised Niah rebirth and his love, and he’d meant to give her both.
Except things hadn’t turned out quite so well as planned. Niah’s manner of death (and even WolfStar shuddered whenever he thought of it) had warped her soul so brutally that she’d been reborn a vindictive, hard woman. So determined to re-seize life that she cared not what her determination might do to the other lives she touched.
Not the woman WolfStar had thought to love. True, the re-born Niah been pleasing enough, and eager enough, and WolfStar had adored her quickness in conceiving of an heir, but …
… but the fact was she’d failed. Failed WolfStar and failed Tencendor at the critical moment. WolfStar had thought of little else in the long hours he’d wandered the dank and dark halls of the waterways. Niah had distracted him when his full concentration should have been elsewhere (could he have stopped Drago if he hadn’t been so determined to bed Niah?), and her inability to keep her hold on the body she’d gained meant that WolfStar had again been distracted — with grief! damn it! — just when his full power and attention was needed to help ward the Star Gate.
Niah had failed because Zenith had proved too strong. Who would have thought it? True, Zenith had the aid of Faraday, and an earthworm could accomplish miracles if it had Faraday to help it, but even so … Zenith had been the stronger, and WolfStar had always been the one to be impressed by strength.
Ah! He had far more vital matters to think of than pondering Zenith’s sudden determination. Besides, with what he planned, he could get back the woman he’d always meant to have. Alive. Vibrant. And very, very powerful.
His fingers unconsciously tightened about the sack.
This time Niah would not fail.
WolfStar grinned, feral and confident in the darkness.
“Here,” he muttered, and ducked into a dark opening no more than head height.
It was an ancient drain, and it lead to the bowels of the Keep on the shores of Cauldron Lake.
WolfStar knew exactly what he had to do.
The horses ran, and their crippled limbs ate up the leagues with astonishing ease. Directly above them flew the Hawkchilds, so completely in unison that as one lifted his wings, so all lifted, and as another swept hers down, so all swept theirs down.
Each stroke of their wings corresponded exactly with a stride of the horses.
And with each stroke of the Hawkchilds’ wings, the horses felt as if they were lifted slightly into the air, and their strides lengthened so that they floated a score of paces with each stride. When their hooves beat earthward again, they barely grazed the ground before they powered effortlessly forward into their next stride.
And with each stride, the horses felt life surge through their veins and tired muscles. Necks thickened and arched, nostrils flared crimson, sway-backs straightened and flowed strong into newly muscled haunches. Hair and skin darkened and fined, until they glowed a silky ebony.
Strange things twisted inside their bodies, but of those changes there was, as yet, no outward sign.
Once fit only for the slaughterhouse, great black war horses raced across the plains, heading for the Ancient Barrows.
2 The Dreamer (#ulink_ea09ae20-d797-59a9-9d7f-6d289175651c)
The bones had lain there for almost twenty years, picked clean by scavengers and the passing winds of time. They had been a neat pile when the tired old soul had lain down for the final time; now they were scattered over a half-dozen paces, some resting in the glare of the sun, others piled under the gloom of a thorn bush.
Footsteps disturbed the peace of the grave site. A tall and willowy woman, dressed in a clinging pale grey robe. Iron-grey hair, streaked with silver, cascaded down her back. On the ring finger of her left hand she wore a circle of stars. She had very deep blue eyes and a red mouth, with blood trailing from one corner and down her chin.
As she neared the largest pile of bones the woman crouched, and snarled, her hands tensed into tight claws.
“Fool way to die!” she hissed. “Alone and forgotten! Did you think I forgot? Did you think to escape me so easily?”
She snarled again, and grabbed a portion of the rib cage, flinging it behind her. She snatched at another bone, and threw that with the ribs. She scurried a little further away, reached under the thorn bush and hauled out its desiccated treasury of bones, also throwing them on the pile.
She continued to snap and snarl, as if she had the rabid fever of wild dogs, scurrying from spot to spot, picking up a knuckle here, a vertebrae there, a cracked femur bone from somewhere else.
The pile of bones grew.
“I want to hunt,” she whispered, “and yet what must I do? Find your useless framework, and knit something out of it! Why must I be left to do it all?”
She finally stood, surveying the skeletal pile before her. “Something is missing,” she mumbled, and swept her hands back through her hair, combing it out of her eyes.
Her tongue had long since licked clean the tasty morsel draining down her chin.
“Missing,” she continued to mumble, wandering in circles about the desolate site. “Missing … where … where … ah!”
She snatched at a long white hair that clung to the outer reaches of the thorn bush and hurried back to the pile of bones with it. She carefully laid it across the top.
Then she stood back, standing very still, her dark blue eyes staring at the bones.
Very slowly she raised her left hand, and the circle of light about its ring finger flared.
“Of what use is bone to me?” she whispered. “I need flesh!”
She dropped her hand, and the light flared from ring to bones.
The pile burst into flame.
Without fear the woman stepped close and reached into the conflagration with both hands. She grabbed hold of something, grunted with effort, then finally, gradually, hauled it free.
Her own shape changed slightly during her efforts, as if her muscles had to rearrange themselves to manage to drag the large object free of the fire, and in the flickering light she seemed something far larger and bulkier than human, and more dangerous. Yet when she finally stood straight again, she had regained her womanly features.
She looked happily at the result of her endeavour. Her magic had not dimmed in these past hours! But she shook her head slightly. Look what had become of him!
He stood, limbs akimbo, pot belly drooping, and he returned her scrutiny blankly, no gratitude in his face at all.
“You are of this land,” she said, “and there is still service it demands of you. Go south, and wait.”
He stared, unblinking, uncaring, and then he gave a mighty yawn. The languor of death had not yet left him, and all he wanted to do was to sleep.
“Oh!” she said, irritated. “Go!”
She waved her hand again, the light flared, and when it had died, she stood alone in the stony gully of the Urqhart Hills.
Grinning again at the pleasantness of solitude, she turned and ran for the north, and as she did so her shape changed, and her limbs loped, and her tongue hung red from her mouth, and she felt the need to sink her teeth into the back of prey, very, very soon.
Scrawny limbs trembling, pot belly hanging from gaunt ribs, he stood on the plain just north of the Rhaetian Hills.
Beside him the Nordra roared.
He was desperate for sleep, and so he hung his head, and he dreamed.
He dreamed. He dreamed of days so far distant he did not know if they were memory or myth. He dreamed of great battles, defeats and victories both, and he dreamed of the one who had loved him, and who he’d loved beyond expression. Then he’d been crippled, and the one who loved him had shown him the door, and so he’d wandered disconsolate — save for the odd loving the boy showed him — until his life had trickled to a conclusion in blessed, blessed death.
Then why was he back?
3 The Feathered Lizard (#ulink_1efa9ed9-3a5a-5685-a065-8dda6d2061c7)
Faraday kept her arm tight about the man as they walked towards where she’d left Zenith and the donkeys. He’d grown tired in the past hour, as if the effort of surviving the Star Gate and then watching the effects of the Demons flow over the land, had finally exhausted him both physically and mentally.
Faraday did not feel much better. This past day had drained her: fighting to repel the horror of the Demons’ passage through the Star Gate and fighting to save Drago from the collapsing chamber, then emerging from the tunnel to find Tencendor wrapped in such horrific despair, had left its mark on her soul. For hours she’d had to fight off the bleak certainty that there was nothing anyone could do against the TimeKeepers.
“Drago,” she murmured. “Just a little further. See? There is Zenith!”
Zenith, who had been waiting with growing anxiety, ran forward from where she’d been pacing by the cart. A corner of her cloak caught in the exposed root of a tree, and she ripped it free in her haste.
“Faraday! Drago! Drago?” Zenith wrapped her arms about her brother, taking the load from Faraday. “Is he all right, Faraday? And you … you look dreadful!”
The staff Drago had been clutching now fell from his fingers and rolled a few paces away.
“He needs some rest,” Faraday said. She tried to smile, and failed. “We both do.”
Zenith looked between both of them. Her relief that Faraday was well, and had managed to ensure Drago’s safe return, was overwhelmed by her concern at how debilitated both were. Drago was a heavy weight in her arms, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow, while the only colour in Faraday’s ashen face were the rings of exhaustion under her eyes. She had clasped her arms about herself in an effort to stop them shaking.
What happened? Zenith longed to ask.
“The cart,” she said, and half-dragged, half-lifted Drago towards it.
“Let me help,” Faraday said, and took the weight of his legs.
Between them they managed to lift Drago into the tray of the cart, then Zenith helped Faraday in.
“Sleep,” she said, pulling a blanket over them. “Sleep.”
Drago and Faraday shared the bed of the cart, and shared the sleep of the exhausted; and they shared a dream, although neither would remember it when they woke.
But over the next few days, as they wandered the forest, the scent of a flowering bush occasionally made one or the other lift a head and pause, and fight for the memory the scent evoked.
Zenith watched them for a long time. She was torn between relief at their return — thank the Stars Drago was alive! — and concern for both Faraday and Drago’s state. What both had endured, either with the Demons, or within the Star Gate Chamber itself, must have been close to unbearable. Even though she had been protected by the trees of Minstrelsea, Zenith had felt a trickle of the despair that had overwhelmed Tencendor when the Demons had broken through, and she could only imagine what Faraday had gone through so close to the Star Gate.
But Faraday and Drago were not Zenith’s only concerns. She wished she knew what had happened to StarDrifter. He’d been at the Star Gate towards the end, trying to help her parents to ward it against the Demons.
Would she see him again?
It didn’t occur to Zenith that she hardly thought about her parents. Now that she knew Faraday and Drago were safe, she needed to know that StarDrifter was as well. To think that he was dead … or somehow under the Demons’ thrall …
Zenith shivered and pulled her cloak closer about her. She could feel how deeply disturbed the forest was … were the Demons secreted within its trees? Were they even now creeping closer to where Zenith stood watch over Faraday and Drago?
Zenith’s head jerked at a movement in the shadows. Something was there … something … There was another movement, more distinct this time, and Zenith felt her chest constrict in horror. There! Something lurking behind the ghost oak.
She stumbled toward the donkeys’ heads, thinking to try and pull them forward, get herself and her sleeping companions away from whatever it was … escape … but when she tugged at the nearest donkey’s halter it refused to budge.
“Damn you!” Zenith hissed, and leaned all her weight into the effort. Why in the world did Faraday travel with these obstinate creatures when she could have chosen a well-trained and obliging horse?
Zenith tugged again, and wondered if she should take a stick to the damned creatures.
The donkey snorted irritably and yanked her head out of Zenith’s grasp.
Just as Zenith again reached for the halter, something emerged from the gloom behind the nearest tree.
Zenith’s heart lurched. She dropped her hand, stared about for a stick that she could defend Faraday and Drago with … and then breathed a sigh of relief, wiping trembling hands down her robe.
It was just one of the fey creatures of the forest, no doubt so disturbed by the presence of the Demons that it cared not that it wandered so close to Zenith and the donkeys.
It was a strange mixture of lizard and bird. About the size of a small dog, it had the body of a large iguana, covered with bright blue body feathers, and with a vivid emerald and scarlet crest. It had impossibly deep black eyes that absorbed the light about it. What it used the light for Zenith could not say, perhaps as food, but once absorbed, the lizard apparently channelled the light through some furnace within its body, for it re-emerged from its diamond-like talons in glinting shafts that shimmered about the forest.
Zenith smiled, for the feathered lizard was a thing of great beauty.
Watching Zenith carefully, the lizard crawled the distance between the tree and the cart, giving both donkeys and Zenith a wide berth. It sniffed briefly about the wheels of the cart, then, in an abrupt movement, jumped into the tray.
Zenith moved very slowly so she could see what the lizard was doing — and then stopped, stunned.
The lizard was sitting close to Drago’s head, gently running its talons through his loose hair, almost … almost as if it were combing it, or weaving a cradle of light about his head.
Zenith was vividly reminded of the way the courtyard cats in Sigholt had taken every opportunity they could to snuggle up to Drago.
Zenith’s eyes widened, and suddenly the lizard decided to take exception to her presence. It narrowed its eyes and hissed at her, then leaped to the ground and scuttled away into the trees.
Zenith stared at the place where it had disappeared, then looked back to Drago. She smoothed the loose strands of his coppery hair (was it brighter now than it had been previously?) away from his face, studying him carefully. He looked the same — and yet different. His face was still thin and lined, but the lines were stronger, more clearly defined, as if they had been created through purpose rather than through resentment and bitterness. And even though he was asleep, there was a strange “quiet” about him. It was the only way Zenith could describe it to herself. A quiet that in itself gave purpose — and hope.
His eyelids flickered open at her touch, and his mouth moved as if to smile.
But he was clearly too exhausted even for that effort.
“Zenith,” he whispered. “Are you well?”
Zenith’s eyes filled with tears. Had he been worried for her all this time? The last time he’d seen her had been in Niah’s Grove in the far north of the forest, battling the Niah-soul within her.
She smiled, and took his hand. “I am well,” she said. “Go back to sleep.”
Now his mouth did flicker in a faint smile, but his eyes were closed and he was asleep again even before it faded.
Zenith stood and watched him for some time, cradling his hand gently in hers, then she looked at Faraday. The woman was deeply asleep, peaceful and unmoving, and Zenith finally set down Drago’s hand and moved away from the cart.
Unsure what to do, and unsettled by the continuing agitation she could feel from the trees, Zenith remembered the staff that Drago had dropped. She walked about until she found where it had rolled, and she picked it up, studying it curiously.
It was made of a beautiful deep red wood that felt warm in her hands. It was intricately carved in a pattern that Zenith could not understand. There was a line of characters that wound about the entire length of the staff, strange characters, made up of what appeared to be small black circles with short hooked lines attached to them.
The top of the staff was curled over like a shepherd’s crook, but the knob was carved into the shape of a lily.
Zenith had never seen anything like it. She hefted the staff, and laid it down next to Drago.
Then she sighed and walked away, sitting down under a tree. She let her thoughts meander until they became loose and meaningless, and her head drooped in sleep.
She dreamed she was falling through the sky, but in the instant before she hit the ground StarDrifter was there, laughing, his arms held out for her.
I will always be there to catch you, I’ll always be there for you.
And Zenith smiled, and dreamed on.
A hand touched her shoulder, and Zenith awoke with a start.
It was Faraday, looking well and rested.
“Faraday?” Zenith said. “How are you? Is Drago still in the cart? What happened at —”
“Shush,” Faraday said, and sat down beside Zenith. “I have slept the night through, and Drago still sleeps. Now,” she took a deep breath, and her body tensed, “let me tell you what happened in the Chamber of the Star Gate.”
Zenith sat quietly, listening to the horror of the emergence of the children — but children no longer, more like birds — and of StarLaughter and the undead child she carried, and then of the appalling evil of the Demons.
“Oh, Zenith,” Faraday said in a voice barely above a whisper. “They were more than dreadful. Anyone caught outside of shelter during the times when they hunt will suffer an appalling death — and a worse life if they are spared death.”
She stopped, and took Zenith’s hand, unable to look her in the face.
“Zenith, the Demons destroyed the Star Gate.”
Zenith stared at Faraday, for a moment unable to comprehend the enormity of what she’d just heard.
“Destroyed the Star Gate?” she repeated, frowning. “But they can’t. I mean … that would mean …”
Zenith trailed off. If the Star Gate was destroyed that would mean the sound of the Star Dance would never filter through Tencendor, even if the TimeKeeper Demons could be stopped.
“No,” Zenith said. “I cannot believe that. The Star Gate can’t be destroyed. It can’t. It can’t!”
Faraday was weeping now. “I’m sorry, Zenith. I …”
Zenith grabbed at her, hugging her tight, and now both wept. Although Zenith had known that the approach of the Demons meant that the Star Dance would be blocked, she had not even imagined that the Demons would actually destroy the Star Gate on their way through.
There was not even a hope for the Dance to ever resume.
“Our entire lives without the Dance?” Zenith whispered. “Even if we can best these Demons, we will never again have the Star Dance?”
Faraday wiped her eyes and sat up straight. “I don’t know, Zenith. I just don’t.”
“Faraday … did you see StarDrifter at the Star Gate?”
“No. I am sorry, Zenith. I don’t know where he is … but I am sure he is safe.”
“Oh.” Zenith’s face went expressionless for a moment. “And the Sceptre?” she finally said.
“That, at least, is safe.” Faraday looked back to the cart. “But transformed, as is everything that comes through the Star Gate. Come. It is time to wake Drago up. There are some clothes for him in the box under the seat of the cart, and we all need to eat.”
“And then?”
“Then we go find Zared, make sure he is well.”
“And then?”
Faraday smiled, and stood, holding out her hand for Zenith. “And then we begin to search for a hope. Come.”
Despair and then, as night settled upon the land, terror swept over Tencendor, but it left him unscathed. He was lost in his dreams, and the Demons could not touch him. He shuffled from leg to leg, trying to ease his arthritic weight, but none of it helped. He wished death would come back and take him once more.
His head drooped. He’d thought to have escaped both the sadnesses of life and the crippling pains of the body. If he hoped hard enough, would death come back?
4 What To Do? (#ulink_fb9464cf-95d4-5318-8174-3b8a8b09f8ff)
The might of Tencendor’s once proud army now stood in groups of five or six under the trees of the northern Silent Woman Woods, eyes shifting nervously. Some members of the Icarii Strike Force preferred to huddle in the lower branches of the trees, as if that way they could be slightly closer to the stars they had lost contact with. Thirty thousand men and Icarii adrift in a world they no longer understood.
Their leader, StarSon Caelum, walked slowly about, the fingers of one hand rubbing at his chin and cheek, his eyes sliding away from the fear in his men’s faces, thinking that now he knew how Drago must have felt when his Icarii powers had been quashed.
There was nothing left. No Star Dance. No enchantment. Nothing. Just an emptiness. And a sense of uselessness so profound that Caelum thought he would go mad if he had to live beyond a day with it.
“Faraday said she would join us here,” Zared said, watching Caelum pace to and fro. He sat on a log, his hands dangling down between his knees, his face impassive.
“And you think she can help us against this … this …?” Caelum drifted to a halt, not sure quite what to call this calamity that had enveloped them.
“Can you?”
Caelum spun about on his heel and walked a few paces away.
“We can do little, Caelum, until we hear from Faraday.”
“Or my parents.”
“Or your parents,” Zared agreed. He paused, watching Caelum pace about. He did not care for the loss that Caelum — and every other Enchanter — had suffered. They relied so deeply on their powers and their beloved Star Dance, that Zared did not know if they could continue to function effectively without it. Caelum was StarSon, the man who must pull them through this crisis — but could he do it if he was essentially not the same man he had been a few weeks ago? How could anyone who had previously relied on the Star Dance remain effective?
Maybe Axis. Axis had been BattleAxe, and a good BattleAxe, for years before he’d known anything about the Star Dance.
And yet hadn’t Axis said that even when he’d thought himself human, mortal, he’d still subconsciously drawn on the Star Dance? Still used its power and aid?
Well, time would tell if Icarii blood was worth anything without the music of the Star Dance.
At the moment, Zared had his doubts. He would gladly trade Tencendor’s entire stock of useless Enchanters and SunSoars for the hope Faraday offered.
Suddenly sick of watching Caelum pacing uselessly to and fro, Zared stood and walked over to where Herme, Theod, DareWing FullHeart and Leagh were engaged in a lacklustre game of ghemt.
Leagh looked up and smiled for him as he approached, and Zared squatted down by her, a hand on her shoulder.
“How goes it, Leagh?”
“She wins,” Herme replied, “for how can we,” his hand indicated his two companions, “allow such a beautiful woman to lose?”
Leagh grinned. “My ‘beauty’ has nothing to do with the fact, my good Earl Herme, that I am far more skilled than you.”
All the men laughed, and threw their gaming sticks into the centre of the circle scratched into the dirt before them.
Zared touched Leagh’s cheek softly, then looked to DareWing. “My friend, I wonder if I might ask something of you?”
The Strike Leader inclined his head. “Speak.”
“Faraday told us that there were certain times of the day when it would be dangerous to go outside, times when the Demons would spread their evil. DareWing, I need to know when exactly these times are.”
“Dawn, dusk, mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and night,” Theod said. “This we know.”
“Yes, but we need to know more specifically. If we know exactly when it is safe for us to roam abroad, then we will have a better idea of how to counter these Demons … or at least, when we can try to do so. Besides, somehow we will have to rebuild life around,” he paused, his mouth working as if he chewed something distasteful, “our new-found restrictions. We need to know when it is safe to live.”
DareWing nodded. “I agree … but how?”
“Can you station members of your Strike Force, perhaps twenty at any one time, along the south-west borders of the Silent Woman Woods? They will be safe enough if they remain among the trees, and perhaps they can observe … observe the behaviour of those still trapped in the open.”
DareWing nodded, agreeing with the location. The south-west border of the Woods would be close to Tare, an area more highly populated than the northern or southern borders of the Woods. If they needed to observe, that would give them their best possible chance.
“The more we learn,” he said, “the more hope we have.”
“You do not want any of our men stationed there?” Herme asked quietly.
“My friend,” Zared said. “I ask only the Icarii because they can move between the border and back to our placement faster than can human or horse legs.” He stood up. “I profess myself sick at not knowing how to react, or what to do next. Until Faraday returns we must do what we can.”
DareWing rose to his feet, nodded at Zared, and faded into the gloom of the forest.
Fifteen paces away Askam sat with his back against a small sapling, his eyes narrow and unreadable as he watched Zared move to talk quietly with Caelum.
His mouth thinned as he saw Caelum nod at Zared’s words and place a hand briefly on the King’s shoulder.
After three days of observation, they had a better idea of the span of the Demonic Hours. From dusk to the time when the sun was well above the horizon was a time of horror, the time when first Raspu, then Rox and finally Mot ruled the land. Pestilence, terror and hunger roamed, and those few who were caught outside succumbed to the infection of whichever Demon had caught them. After the dawn hour there were three hours of peace, a time of recovery, before Barzula, tempest, struck at mid-morning.
Although the occasional storm rolled across the landscape during Barzula’s time — whirlwinds of ice or of fire — the scouts reported that the primary influence of the tempest appeared to occur within the minds of those caught outside. Once Barzula’s hour had passed and he had fed, there was again a time of peace (or, rather, a time of frightful anticipation) for some four hours until Sheol struck at mid-afternoon. Again, an interval of three hours when it was safe to venture outside, then the long hours of pestilence and terror through dusk and night.
The precise time span of the Demonic Hours were marked by a thin grey haze that slid over the land from a point to the east, probably the location of the Demons themselves. It was a sickening miasma that carried the demonic contagion with it, lying over the land in a drifting curtain of madness until it dissipated at the end of the appointed time.
“And those caught outside?” Zared asked softly of the first group of scouts to report back.
“Some die,” one of the scouts said, “but most live, although their horror is dreadful to watch.”
“Live?”
The scout took a moment to answer. “They live,” he finally said, “but in a state of madness. Sometimes they eat dirt, or chew on their own excrement. I have seen some try to couple with boulders, and others stuff pebbles into every orifice they can find until their bodies burst. But many who live past their first infection — and those dangerous few hours post-infection when they might kill themselves in their madness — wander westwards, sometimes north-west.”
The scout paused again, locking eyes with his fellows. Then he turned back to Zared and Caelum. “It is as if they have been infused with a purpose.”
At that Zared had shuddered. A purpose? To what end? What were the Demons planning?
But the scouts had yet more to report. One group had also seen seven black shapes running eastwards across the Plains of Tare towards the Ancient Barrows. Horses they thought, but were not sure. Above them had flown a great dark cloud … that whispered.
No-one knew quite what to make of it.
“We have roughly three hours after dawn, four hours between mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and then another three hours before dusk,” Zared said to Caelum and Askam on the third morning since they had taken shelter in the Woods.
“Time enough for an army to scamper from shelter to shelter?” Caelum said, his frustration clearly showing in his voice. “And what can an army do? Challenge Despair to one-on-one combat? Demand that Pestilence meet us on the battlefield, weapons of his choosing? What am I supposed to do?”
“Be patient, Caelum,” Zared said. “We must wait for Faraday and —”
“I am sick of waiting for this fairy woman!” Askam said. “We must move, and move now. I suggest that —”
“Faraday?” put in a voice to one side of the clearing. “Faraday?”
They all spun around.
Axis and Azhure stepped out from the gloom of a tree. Just behind them StarDrifter leaned against the trunk of the tree, his wings and arms folded, his face devoid of any expression.
And, yet further behind him, pale shapes moved in and out of sight. Massive hounds — Azhure’s Alaunt. Most settled down out of sight, but one, Sicarius, their leader, walked forward to sit by Azhure’s side. Her hand touched the top of his head briefly, as if for reassurance.
“Father!” Caelum hugged his parents tightly, relieved beyond measure that they’d arrived. All three had to blink tears from their eyes. They were alive, and for the moment they were safe, and that meant there was still some hope left. There must be.
Caelum nodded at StarDrifter, who raised a tired hand in greeting, then returned his attention to his parents. “You were in the Star Gate Chamber? What happened? Did you see the Demons step through? And Drago? What of him?”
“Caelum, enough questions!” Axis said, but his tone was warm, and it took the sting out of his words. “Give me a moment to catch my breath and I will answer them.”
He swept his eyes about the clearing, taking in Zared, Askam and DareWing. Together? This group that had only days previously been committed to civil war? For the first time in days Axis felt a glimmer of true optimism. He looked Zared in the eye, remembering the last time they’d met — the heated words, the hatred — but now all he saw was the son of Rivkah and Magariz, his brother, and a man he would have to relearn to trust.
Caelum had obviously done it, and so could he — and Axis knew it would not be hard. This brother was one that, despite all the arguments and differences, he knew he could lean on when they faced a common enemy.
“We left the Chamber before the Demons broke through,” Axis said. “We didn’t see them — or Drago — although I imagine he came through with his demonic companions in treachery.”
Axis paused, and his voice and eyes hardened. “I hope he is satisfied with what he has accomplished. His revenge was harder than I ever imagined it could have been.”
“None of us know what was in Drago’s heart or mind when he fled Sigholt,” Zared said. Like Axis, all Zared’s ill-feeling for his brother had vanished. Their personal problems and ambitions were petty in the face of the disaster that had enveloped them. “And we do not know if he was the instigator or just another victim of this disaster. Perhaps we should not judge him too harshly until we have heard what he has to say.”
Axis’ face hardened, and Zared decided to leave the subject of Drago well enough alone for the time being. “Axis,” he said, and stepped closer to him. He hesitated, then took one of Axis’ hands between his. “How are you? And Azhure?”
In truth, Zared did not have to ask, for both Axis and Azhure, and StarDrifter who still lingered in the shadows, looked as did every Icarii Enchanter Zared had seen in the past few days. They looked … ordinary.
“How am I?” Axis said, and, stunningly, quirked his mouth in a lopsided grin. “I am Axis, and that is all I am.”
Zared stared at him, holding his gaze, still holding his hand. “Is ‘just Axis’ going to be enough, brother?”
“It is all we have,” Azhure put in softly, and Zared shifted his gaze to her. There was still spirit in her eyes, and determination in her face. “Just Axis” and “just Azhure” might still be enough to stop the sky from falling in. Might.
Zared dropped Axis’ hand and nodded. “What do you know?”
“First,” Axis said, “I need to know what you have here. Zared and Caelum … together, in the one camp. And with no knives to each other’s throats. Have you made peace? And you mentioned Faraday. Have you seen her?”
Caelum hesitated, glanced at Zared, then spoke. “Father, we fought —”
“And I lost,” Zared put in, and grimaced.
“I had the advantage,” Caelum said, glancing again at Zared. “We agreed to unite against the threat of the Demons. We were riding to meet you at the Ancient Barrows when … when … Zared, you finish. She spoke to you, not me.”
“On the night before the Demons broke through,” Zared said, “we were camped some four leagues above these Woods. I’d been to talk with Caelum, and when I returned I found Faraday and Zenith seated at my campfire.”
“Zenith?” Azhure said. “Are you sure it was she?”
Behind her StarDrifter finally straightened from the tree trunk and showed more interest in the conversation.
Zared frowned at her. “Yes, I am sure it was her. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Azhure turned her head aside. Axis had been right then. Niah — her mother — was truly dead. Yet one more grief to examine in the dead of night.
“Faraday and Zenith had just walked out of the night,” Leagh said, joining the group. She linked her arm with her husband’s, and shared a brief smile with him. “They were well, and more cheerful than any I had seen for weeks previously, or since.”
“She said that we had to flee for the Woods,” Zared said, “and that we’d be no more use than lambs in a slaughterhouse if we continued on to the Barrows.”
“In that she was right,” Axis said. “None of us were of any use.”
Unnoticed, StarDrifter had moved to linger at the outside of the group, listening.
“After some persuasion,” Caelum said, “I agreed to divert the army here. If we had been caught outside …”
“At least we have an army,” Axis said, “although Stars knows what use it will be to us. And Faraday and Zenith. Where are they now?”
“She said she and Zenith were going to the Star Gate,” Zared said. “They said they had someone to meet there. I thought it was you.”
Axis shook his head. “No. And if they were in the Chamber when the Demons broke through, then they would both be dead. No-one has the power to resist them.”
“Maybe.” StarDrifter now spoke up. “And maybe not. Faraday has changed, and who knows now what enchantment she draws upon. Besides,” he indicated the trees, “the forest’s power, as the Avar’s, has been wounded, but not mortally. There is hope.”
StarDrifter knew who it was they had gone to meet. He did not know what kind of a hope Drago provided, but if Faraday believed in him, then StarDrifter thought he might have the courage to do likewise. Stars, but he hoped they’d survived the Demons’ arrival. Faraday might well have the power to cope with them … but Zenith? StarDrifter prayed Faraday had shown the sense to keep Zenith well back. They’d not fought so long to save her from Niah to lose her now.
“There must always be hope,” Axis said quietly. “Fate always leaves a hope somewhere. And I intend to find it.”
“And Faraday,” StarDrifter said. “Did she say where she and Zenith would —”
“She said that we should wait for her here, and she would eventually rejoin us,” Zared said. “She said we were not to go near Cauldron Lake, for that was where the Demons would strike first.”
StarDrifter nodded, and tried to relax. Faraday would keep them all well. She must. He suddenly realised how deeply worried he was about Zenith, and he frowned slightly.
“How does she know that?” Azhure said. “Is she somehow in league with them?”
“Faraday has always put this land before her own needs and desires,” StarDrifter said sharply. “And you, Azhure, should know that better than anyone else here. Have you forgotten she died so you could live?”
Azhure’s cheeks reddened, and she dropped her eyes.
“Enough,” Axis said. “Caelum, you are our hope.”
“Me?”
Axis looked about. “Caelum, my friends, can we sit? We all have information to share, and my legs have lost their god-like endurance.”
Leagh took his arm, and then Azhure’s, and led them towards a fire set mid-distance between two trees where it could do no harm. “Sit down, and rest those legs.”
“What do you mean, I am your hope?” Caelum said, watching his parents. He had refused food, and had waited impatiently until Axis, Azhure and StarDrifter had eaten. They had very obviously had little in the past few days.
“Not only our hope, my son, but Tencendor’s.” Axis stalled for time, wiping his fingers carefully on a napkin that Leagh handed him. He hesitated, then looked his son in the eye.
“There is much I did not tell you while you were so entwined in hostilities with Zared. But now that I see you both sit side by side, in peace, it gives me the strength to say what I hesitated to speak previously.
“Caelum, I cannot say all the details, but for now listen to me well. All of you listen to me well. Beneath each of the Sacred Lakes lie Repositories, all heavily warded and defended, and in each of these Repositories lies the various life parts of the Midday Demon, Qeteb.”
Axis continued on in a low voice, telling of the Maze Gate, and of its age-old message that the Crusader was the only one capable of defeating the Demons. Forty years ago it had named the Crusader as StarSon.
“It waited for a year after you were born, Caelum. It watched and waited until it was sure, and then it named you, StarSon, as Tencendor’s hope.”
“The hope of many worlds,” StarDrifter said reflectively, “if these TimeKeepers can so effortlessly move through the stars.”
“But how?” Caelum’s eyes flickered between his parents and then about the rest of the group. “How? I have no power left! Nothing! How can I meet —”
“Caelum, be still … and believe.” Azhure rested her hand on Caelum’s knee. “There is hope, and there is a weapon you can wield.”
Caelum said nothing. He dropped his eyes to where his hands fiddled with a length of leather tack.
“The Rainbow Sceptre,” Azhure said. “It contains the power of this world and the power of the Repositories … the power that currently still traps Qeteb.”
“Unfortunately, mother,” Caelum said, his voice heavy with sarcasm, “Drago stole the Sceptre. Took it to the Demons. Should we just ask for it back?”
“The Sceptre has ever had its own agenda,” said yet another voice to the side of the clearing, “and to blame Drago for its machinations is surely pointless.”
Everyone stared, voiceless.
Across the clearing stood Faraday, Zenith slightly behind her left shoulder, Drago standing by her right, his entire body tense and watchful.
Just behind them were the pale shapes of the two donkeys, their long ears pricked forward curiously.
“Zenith!” StarDrifter breathed, locking eyes with the woman, but before he could move, Axis rose to his feet.
5 The Prodigal Son’s Welcome (#ulink_8213e408-35aa-588f-aaae-711477e1d0fc)
Axis stared, and — in a single flash of thought — remembered. He remembered the years of pain and suffering that had been needed to defeat both Borneheld and Gorgrael. The men and women who had died in order to reunite Tencendor. The lives that had been ruined by those who had thought to seize power illegally. He remembered how he and Azhure had fought to rebuild a life, not only for themselves and their family, but for an entire nation.
He remembered how they had thought themselves free of grief and treachery.
But here before him stood the son who had spent his time in Azhure’s womb plotting how best to kill both elder brother and father. Here was the son who’d conspired with Gorgrael, who had murdered RiverStar, and who had single-handedly wrought the complete destruction of all Axis had fought so long and hard for.
Here. Before him. Standing as if he thought to ask for a place among them.
And beside him, Faraday and Zenith. Had both been corrupted by his evil, both seduced into supporting his treachery? His lover and his daughter — had they no loyalty for Axis either?
“You vile bastard,” Axis said, very quietly but with such hatred that Faraday instinctively took a half-step in front of Drago. “How dare you present yourself to me?”
And then he leapt forward.
Herme stepped forward to stop him, but Axis spun about and slammed a fist into his face, knocking him to the ground. As Herme fell, Axis grabbed a knife from the Earl’s weapons belt and strode forward again.
Zared jumped to his feet, but was pulled back by Caelum, and both tumbled to the ground.
“No!” Faraday cried, taking another step forward, but Axis shoved her to one side. Faraday stumbled back against Zenith who had to wrap both arms about her to prevent her falling.
Before anyone else had time to move, or even cry out, Axis seized Drago, slammed him back against a tree, and buried the knife a half-finger’s depth into the junction of Drago’s neck and shoulder.
One of the donkeys brayed, and both pranced nervously.
“I should have done this forty years ago!” Axis cried, and he stabbed the dagger as deep into Drago’s neck as he could.
Drago gagged, uttered a low, choking cry, then sagged against the tree trunk as his father wrenched the knife out.
Axis drew it back for the final, killing blow.
Blood pumped out of Drago’s neck.
Faraday jerked out of Zenith’s arms and tried to grab Axis’ hand or arm, but he was too strong for her, and threw her to the ground, overbalancing himself.
“Axis!” Zared yelled, scrambling to his feet again, but this time both Askam and Caelum grabbed him and wrestled him back a pace or two.
“For the Stars’ sakes, Zared,” Caelum cried, “let my father end this now!” He hooked a foot under Zared’s leg, and toppled him to the ground.
Leagh dropped to her husband’s side, shooting Caelum a hard look. At the same time Zenith knelt by Drago, her joy at seeing StarDrifter alive completely forgotten in her concern for her brother. She grabbed at the hem of her cloak, tearing a section free, and folded the material into a thick square, using it to try to stifle the blood seeping from Drago’s throat.
Everyone else stood, helpless and unsure, wondering who was right, wondering what could be done, wondering whether or not another death would truly help.
Axis recovered his balance from Faraday’s attempt to push him over, drew his arm back — and found it seized from behind in sharp, murderous teeth.
Sicarius. The leader of Azhure’s Alaunt.
No-one had seen him move, and no-one knew where he’d come from, but now the hound pulled Axis to the ground, and stood over him, snarling and snapping.
“Sicarius!” Azhure buried her hands in the loose skin of the hound’s neck and tried to pull him off, but the hound would not budge.
Azhure tugged desperately, unable to believe Sicarius’ savage assault. What was the hound doing? To attack Axis?
“Drop the knife, Axis!” StarDrifter yelled. “Drop the damned knife or that dog is going to kill you!”
Then, ignoring Axis completely, he fell to his knees beside Drago, adding the weight of his hands to those of Zenith to try and stop the bleeding. He locked eyes briefly with Zenith, then turned slightly to Faraday who was now at Drago’s side also.
“What were you thinking of to enter this glade with Drago at your side?” StarDrifter hissed. “Didn’t you even think that Axis might not welcome his son home with open arms?”
Faraday shook her head helplessly, and StarDrifter made a small sound of disgust. She should have known better.
Zenith, absolutely shaken at the violence, drew comfort from the weight of StarDrifter’s hands over hers, and hoped they would staunch the bleeding enough to give Drago a chance of life.
StarDrifter lifted his eyes to hers and, although he did not smile, the lines about his eyes crinkled slightly in warmth.
“I am more than pleased to see you again, beloved Zenith,” StarDrifter murmured. “You are well?”
She nodded, and StarDrifter looked back to Drago. The bleeding was slowing — Axis’ knife must have struck his son’s clavicle rather than one of the neck veins. If he’d managed that, Drago would be dead already, for even the pressure of a thousand hands at his throat could not have stemmed the damage.
He gestured to Faraday to help Zenith apply pressure to the wound, touched Zenith’s cheek briefly in reassurance, then slowly stood and walked over to Axis.
His son had dropped the knife, and Sicarius had retreated to sit tense and watchful several paces away. His golden eyes flickered between Axis and Drago.
Everyone else was absolutely still, as watchful as the hound.
Azhure was down by her husband, her arms about him, supporting him into a sitting position. “StarDrifter,” she began, “what —”
StarDrifter ignored her. He thrust his right hand forward into Axis’ face. It was smeared with Drago’s blood. “Look at this!” he said. “Your son’s blood, Axis, by your hand!”
“Did you never see the wounds on Caelum’s body once Azhure rescued him from Gorgrael?” Axis said quietly. “Did you never see his blood? And now, look upon the blood smeared across this land, StarDrifter, and tell me that my ‘son’,” he spat the word, “does not deserve to die for it.”
Drago cleared his throat. “I have come back to help,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
“Then die!” Axis threw back at him, pushing Azhure’s arms aside and rising to his feet. “That would help considerably.”
The wound in Drago’s neck had now almost stopped bleeding, and Faraday left Drago’s care to Zenith. She rose and walked slowly forward. “There has been too much death in this world, Axis, for you to want to add to it.”
“Have you ever thought that by killing Drago now we might stop further death?” he snarled back.
In response, Faraday lifted her head and stared about at each and every person present. “I want you all to know, and this I pledge on the blood that I shed for Tencendor, and for you, Axis and Azhure, that I will stand responsible for Drago’s actions. I trust him, and I ask that you give him the benefit of the doubt. Drago wants to help, he can help. Let him.”
“He murdered RiverStar!” Caelum said, stabbing a finger at Drago. “And stole the Sceptre and provided the means whereby this land now stands decimated. Trust him?”
Faraday looked at him, then turned to StarDrifter standing beside her. “StarDrifter? I —”
“And I,” Zenith put in fiercely from where she knelt by Drago’s side.
“We both,” Faraday corrected herself, “believe Drago deserves a chance to prove his worth, and his loyalty. He did not murder RiverStar, and if he fled with the Sceptre, then that was at the Sceptre’s doing, not his. It needed to go to the Demons and so it manipulated Drago’s mind to get there. Drago has done regrettable things in the past, but he deserves a chance to redeem himself.”
“Redeem himself?” Axis said. “Stars, Faraday! How can you stand there, protecting this misbegotten evil? No doubt he has regained his Icarii powers in return for aiding the Demons — how else could he have manipulated Sicarius into defending him? Does he now covet the Throne of the Stars itself? Has he promised you a place beside him? Is that why you aid him?”
“Believe me, father,” Drago said, his voice a little stronger now, “all my Icarii power has been burned completely away. I have nothing left save my need to help right the wrongs I have done.”
Axis ignored him. He stepped forward to stand belligerently in front of Faraday. “How can you aid him?” he repeated.
Sicarius shifted forward slightly, and noticeably tensed.
“You go too far, Axis!” StarDrifter put his hand on his son’s shoulder, and wrenched him back a pace. Faraday had suffered too much violence in her life to have more visited upon her now.
“How can you accuse this woman, of all people, of aligning herself with the Demons?” StarDrifter continued. “Must I remind you that she died for you?”
He whipped about and stared now at Azhure, her face as cold as Axis’. “And you, Azhure. Have you forgotten?”
StarDrifter turned back and looked at Drago. “If Faraday walked in here with Qeteb himself and said that a spark of goodness rested in his breast, and that she would support him, then that would be enough for me. Drago, do you truly repent for what you did to Caelum?”
“Yes.” Drago’s eyes were on Caelum standing rigid eight or nine paces away, not StarDrifter. “I am not the hunter you fear, Caelum,” he said. “I come here to offer you my aid in whatever you have to do to defeat the Demons as some recompense for my actions against you so many years ago.”
“And why should I believe that?” asked Caelum.
“None of us believe that,” Axis said.
Azhure opened her mouth to speak, but was forestalled by Zared.
“I believe Drago deserves the chance,” he said. “Axis, have you or Caelum even thought of the fact that Drago is the only one among us who has had any firsthand experience of these Demons? Dammit, why kill that knowledge and potential help?”
“I think Zared speaks some sense,” DareWing FullHeart said, finally braving his say. “Faraday, you ask a great deal of everyone here. I do not think,” his mouth quirked and he gestured about the gathering, “that many here are ready to place their trust in Drago. Most of us have troublesome doubts. But most of us are prepared to trust you. Of everyone within this clearing, you are the one who deserves our full trust.”
Axis’ mouth hardened, and he turned his face away.
“If you say you will stand responsible for Drago’s actions,” DareWing finished, “and that he deserves the chance to finally help instead of hinder, then I will trust you and I will give Drago that chance.”
“And I,” StarDrifter said quietly, looking Faraday directly in the eye. Then he dropped his gaze to Drago. “Don’t fail her.”
Be his trust, the Survivor had said, be his trust. Suddenly Faraday knew what he had meant.
Axis started to say something, stopped himself, then stared at the ground for several moments, battling his fury.
Finally he raised his eyes. “Where is the Sceptre?” he said flatly. “If Drago hands the Sceptre to Caelum, then I will give him his chance.”
“I do not know the Sceptre’s will, nor do I know its location,” Faraday said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Axis stared at her. “Sorry! A trifling word to use as excuse for defending a traitor and a murderer!”
“No! Wait!” Drago struggled to his feet, the front of his tunic horribly bloodstained, his face white. He leaned heavily on Zenith, and looked about.
Where was the staff? Surely that was the Sceptre, transformed?
“Well?” said Axis.
“Wait …” Drago cast his eyes frantically about. He had it when he stepped into the clearing, he was sure … had it fallen from his hand when Axis attacked him? Where …
“You were ever the consummate play-actor,” Axis said, hate and sarcasm infusing his voice and face.
Drago stopped his search to stare at his father. “I —”
“I have had enough of you and your lies!” Axis said, and turned back to Caelum.
He took a deep breath, and calmed himself. “We still have hope, Caelum. Adamon and the other gods have gone to Star Finger and await us there. If we go to the mountain we will have the advice and knowledge of the past six or seven thousand years that is stored there. There must be something secreted in the damned mountain that can help us! Besides, I cannot help but believe the Sceptre will find its way to the StarSon in time. It is fated thus, and thus it must be.”
Unnoticed, the donkeys twitched their ears slightly, and one of them dipped her head to the ground, as if trying to hide unwanted mirth.
Caelum nodded, comforted by the surety in his father’s voice. “And now that the Demons are through and no longer blocking the Star Gate, there’s every chance that we might be able to regain a part of the Star —”
“The Star Gate has been destroyed,” Zenith said, wishing she did not have to say it. “We will never hear the Star Dance again.”
To one side StarDrifter groaned and sank to one knee, head in hand.
Axis’ face worked, and he shot Drago a look of such utter malevolence that his son had to turn his face aside, but Axis finally managed to speak relatively calmly.
“Then there is no point in lingering here. StarDrifter, I say to you, and to you, Dare Wing, and to you, Zared, that if you want to believe Faraday’s assurances then I cannot stop you — but don’t try to stop my efforts to help this land! Azhure and I will take Caelum back to Star Finger. Already, Adamon and the others who were once gods gather there.
“Zared, in Caelum’s absence I need you to take command of the army. DareWing, through you Zared will command the Strike Force as well — support him.”
DareWing nodded.
“And my task while you and Caelum are in Star Finger?” Zared said.
“Perhaps the worst task of all,” Axis responded. “Deal with the devastation as best you can. Save as much and as many as best you can. Save a Tencendor for my son … for us all.”
“I will do my best, StarMan.”
“Do not call me that,” Axis said dryly. “Now I am no more the StarMan than you.”
He turned about, meaning to talk to Azhure, but his eye was caught once more by Drago, and his face darkened.
“Drago,” Axis thrust a finger at him, “come within shouting distance of Star Finger and no-one will be able to stop me killing you. Do you understand?”
Drago was standing still, patiently enduring Zenith’s bandaging of his throat. “I, like you,” he said, “will do whatever I have to in order to right the wrongs done to this land, father. I wish you would believe me. I will do anything I can.”
“Neither I nor this land nor Caelum needs your aid,” Axis said. “You are filth! I disowned you as a child, Drago, and there is nothing in this life that will ever make me accept you now. I do not love you, and I never will, and I swear before every Star that can still hear me that I wish you the death you deserve for your misdeeds. Damn you! You are nothing but worm-filled shit in my eyes!”
Drago flinched and his already white face went whiter.
Axis spun about on his heel. “Zared, may Azhure and I requisition a horse apiece? We must ride our way north as Spiredore is undoubtedly useless now the Star Dance is dead.”
Zared nodded. “I will also send a unit of men with you. You will surely need some protection wandering north — gods know where the TimeKeepers are now.”
“Good. Azhure, my love,” Axis held out his hand to her. “Say your goodbyes … to whoever deserves it. Caelum, fetch whatever you need to bring with you.”
“Axis?”
Axis turned to look at Faraday.
“Axis, keep to shelter — whether beneath trees or inside houses — during the Demonic Hours. You will remain safe that way.”
Axis continued to stare at her, then he spun about and walked away. Faraday turned her attention back to Drago’s wound.
The gathering slowly dissipated as people drifted off, to prepare for departure or to sink back before fires and mull over the scene they’d just witnessed.
Sicarius melted back into the shadows, rejoining the pack of Alaunt.
Faraday pushed Drago back to the ground and helped Zenith more securely bind his neck.
“The staff!” Drago said. “It was here! I know it! Where —”
“Hush,” Faraday said, and laid gentle fingers on his lips. “Hush now, please.”
“I have to help,” Drago said. “I must!”
“I know,” Faraday whispered. “I know.”
She and Zenith tucked the loose end of the bandage in, then Zenith smiled, patted Drago on the shoulder, and rose and walked off to talk with StarDrifter.
Faraday waited until she had gone, then laid an apologetic hand on one of Drago’s.
“StarDrifter was right,” she said softly. “I should have thought before walking you so blatantly forth into this glade.”
“I deserved much of that, Faraday,” he said, and sighed. “No-one knows better than me that I deserve both Caelum’s and my parents’ distrust.”
“Don’t ever say —” Faraday began fiercely, when Azhure’s voice behind her stopped her.
“Zenith?” she said.
Azhure very pointedly did not look at Drago.
Faraday felt for her. Torn between son and husband, watching the world that she’d fought for so hard die about her. Losing immortality. Losing enchantment.
Wondering why Sicarius had attacked her husband, rather than Drago.
“She went that way,” Faraday inclined her head, “with StarDrifter.”
Azhure nodded, risked one glance at Drago, then walked off.
Azhure found Zenith standing close with StarDrifter by a group of tethered horses. They were talking quietly, sharing information about their movements since they had parted on the Island of Mist and Memory.
As Zenith looked up at her approach, Azhure asked bluntly, “Zenith — or Niah?”
“Zenith,” her daughter replied softly. “Zenith reborn, not Niah.”
Azhure hesitated, then nodded. She stood indecisively, as if wondering whether to touch Zenith or not. “Will you tell me what happened?”
“I know what your mother meant to you,” Zenith said, “and I know what sacrifice she made for you. We have all treasured and revered her memory. But … but the soul that tried to seize mine had changed. She was warped by her dreadful death. All pity had been seared from her. Mother, I was never Niah, and I could not agree to let her kill me so she could live again.”
Azhure’s eyes were bright with tears, and she put a trembling hand to her mouth. “How?”
Zenith glanced at StarDrifter, both of them remembering that dreadful night that Zenith had forced the Niah-soul into the girl-child she carried, and had expelled the child from her body, killing her.
But how could Zenith tell Azhure that? Her mother loved Niah deeply, and treasured her memory, and it would only wound Azhure to be told the manner of Niah’s second death.
“Something of the Niah who had so sacrificed herself for you remained, mother. When she realised the extent of my distress she acquiesced, and let me be. She said … she said that she had already lived her life, and was content that I should be allowed to live mine.”
Azhure stared at her, then burst into tears. Zenith leaned forward and gathered Azhure to her, rocking her gently as if she were truly the mother, and not the daughter.
For his part, StarDrifter just stared at Zenith, realising for the first time how deeply he felt for her. And how differently he felt for her.
As Caelum inspected his horse’s gear, Askam stepped quietly up beside him.
“Yes?” Caelum said.
“Was it wise of Axis to leave Zared in full control of the army, StarSon?” Askam said, and dropped his voice still further. “Remember that he has crowned himself King of Achar. Do you so agree with his actions that you watch as your father virtually presents him with the entire territory of Tencendor? Gods, man! He’s even got control of the Strike Force!”
Caelum thought carefully before he answered, but when he did his voice was very firm. “Axis made the right choice,” he said. “Zared can command more loyalty than you. Do you not remember what happened when you tried to command his army the morning after the battle?”
Askam recoiled. “I have lost my sister to him, now must I also lose land and troops. Where is the justice in this, Caelum? Where?”
“The problems between you and Zared must wait until the TimeKeepers lie broken at our feet, Askam.”
“And the fact that he apparently stands with Drago against you and your father? Does that not concern you?”
Caelum paused, unable to answer immediately. “Zared, like so many of us, simply does not know what to do. And like DareWing, perhaps, he wants as many choices as possible left open to him.”
He sighed. “My friend, giving Zared control of the army is no reflection on you. He is simply the best man to do it.”
No, Askam thought, no reflection at all. I am simply “not best”. I understand, Caelum StarSon. I understand very, very well.
“I understand, StarSon,” he said, and then he drifted away into the gathering darkness.
Zared organised the unit of men, then went to check that Axis had suitable horses for Azhure and himself.
“Is there such need to rush off so soon?” Zared said quietly to his brother.
Axis looked at him. “I cannot stay, Zared. Not with Drago here. You must surely understand that.” He paused.
“Zared, I cannot explain this, but somehow I know the answer to those Demons lies in Star Finger. I cannot wait to get there. And to get Caelum there.”
Axis stopped and glanced to where Faraday and Drago sat, then moved a step closer to his brother and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I cannot trust Drago. I cannot!”
“I can understand, Axis.”
“And yet you support him?”
Zared hesitated. “I trust Faraday when she says that Drago has pledged himself to Caelum. Axis, I do not believe he murdered RiverStar. Caelum treated him badly, the trial was a farce, for the gods’ sakes!”
“And yet the vision WolfStar conjured showed that Drago murdered —”
“And have you ever trusted WolfStar?”
Axis was silent, and Zared let him think for a moment before he continued. “I am prepared to give Drago a chance, Axis. I think that he deserves that one chance.”
Axis’ face tightened, but when he spoke his voice was calm. “Then will you promise me one thing?”
Zared raised his eyebrows.
“Promise me that you will kill him the moment you suspect he works, not for Tencendor and Caelum, but for those Demons. Promise me!”
Zared slowly nodded. “I will not allow him to betray this land, Axis.”
“To betray this land any further than he has!” Axis said bitterly, but he accepted Zared’s words, and, after a moment’s thought, gripped his younger brother’s hand. “I do not envy you your task,” he said.
“Nor I yours,” Zared said quietly. They stared at each other, then Zared turned and walked away.
Caelum finished checking his horse, disquieted by Askam’s visit, then went to say goodbye to Zared and DareWing. Zared would look after Tencendor — what was left of it — as well as anyone could.
Drago watched him, then pushed Faraday’s gentle hands away. “Faraday, I must speak with him.”
“Wait! Drago, your neck —”
“Faraday, a few steps won’t hurt me, and I need to talk with Caelum. Neither of us should leave it like this.”
Faraday dropped her hands. “Then stay well clear of your father.”
Drago nodded, his expression bleak, and walked slowly away.
Caelum conversed briefly with Zared and DareWing, and then began to walk back to where he could see his parents with the unit of twenty men that Zared had given them. Axis and Azhure, the Alaunt milling about them, were obviously impatient.
Caelum sighed. On the one hand, he hated to leave Tencendor like this. He felt as though he were abandoning his responsibilities. On the other hand, Star Finger represented such a haven of safety that he could hardly wait to get there. Well might Faraday say that Drago was now the most trustworthy soul this side of death, but Caelum could not believe it. Not when each night the nightmare still thundered through his sleep, and the lance still pierced his heart.
Suddenly Drago stepped out from behind a tree and stood directly in Caelum’s path.
Caelum stopped dead, his heart thumping. Drago was pale, and the blood-stained bandage about his neck hardly improved his appearance, but Caelum thought he looked strong enough for mischief. He quickly checked the surrounding trees — no-one was close, although he could see his parents start in concern; Axis had taken a step forward.
“Get out of my way,” Caelum said.
“Caelum, please, I do not come to hurt you —”
“Why should I believe that?”
Drago held out a hand. “Caelum, the only reason I came back through the Star Gate was to right the wrong I did you so many years ago. Brother, I pledge myself to your cause. Please, believe me.”
His only answer was a hostile stare from his brother.
Drago’s hand, still extended, wavered slightly. “I can understand why you hate and fear —”
“You understand nothing if you can say you have pledged yourself to my cause, and you ask me to trust you. Why should I believe that?”
“Caelum —”
“How dare I ever trust you?“
Drago dropped his hand. “Because when I came back through the Star Gate all enchantments fell from my eyes, Caelum.”
Caelum’s eyes widened, appalled at what he’d heard. He stared at Drago. “And still you say, ‘I come only to aid you’?” he whispered.
Drago nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving those of his brother. “I swore to aid you and to aid Tencendor, and so I will do.”
“You lie,” Caelum said, “if all enchantments fell from your eyes as you came back through the Star Gate, then you must lie! You are here to destroy me. No more, no less.”
Then he stepped past his brother and walked into the shadows where waited his parents.
As they mounted and rode into the forest, Sicarius stood a moment, looking first at the retreating riders, then at Drago standing watching them.
He whined, hesitated, then finally bounded after Axis, Azhure and Caelum.
The pack of Alaunt followed his lead.
High in a nearby tree, the feathered lizard inspected one of its twinkling talons, then slowly scratched at its cheek, thinking. After a moment it glanced down to the two white donkeys and the blue cart they were still harnessed to.
In its tray lay the staff.
6 The Rosewood Staff (#ulink_7103ca60-65fa-5436-88a7-75f029ebc18a)
“Drago?” Faraday placed a hand on his arm. “Do not blame Caelum too much.”
“I do not blame him at all.”
“Then do not blame yourself too much, either. Come, let us walk back to Leagh and Zared’s fire. We need to eat, and I think I can see Leagh dabbling in some pot or the other. And I sincerely hope she spent some of her princesshood attending lessons in the kitchens,” she added, almost in an undertone.
Despite the emotion of the past hour, Drago’s sense of humour had not completely deserted him, and Faraday’s words made him grin. For someone who had lived on a diet of grass, grass and yet more grass for the past forty-odd years, Faraday should be the last person to criticise anyone’s culinary imagination.
They walked slowly towards the campsite. Leagh was still obviously disturbed at the scene between Drago and his father, but she composed herself and then smiled and held out her hands as Drago and Faraday approached.
“Drago, come and sit down. There is a pot of stew here. Not much, but it will warm you, at least.”
Drago thanked Leagh as she passed him a bowl and then, as he sat, asked her to fetch Zared, DareWing, StarDrifter and Zenith. “And any other who commands within this force, Leagh. I need to talk, and they have done the honour of trusting me.”
Leagh nodded, and walked off.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Faraday said.
“Yes. They — all of you — deserve an explanation of what I did. And …”
“Yes?”
“You should never doubt Leagh’s talents, Faraday. This stew is right flavoursome given the restrictions of her kitchen.”
The others arrived and grouped quietly about, taking places as they could about the fire. Zenith was one of the first to arrive, StarDrifter close behind. He sat down close beside Zenith, closer than need be. Zenith tensed slightly, then relaxed and smiled as StarDrifter murmured something to her. Zared sat with Leagh across the fire from Drago. DareWing and his two most senior Crest-Leaders were to his right. Herme sat between Leagh and Faraday, but Theod and Askam preferred to remain standing just behind the seated circle, several of their lieutenants still further behind them.
Everyone studied Drago curiously. StarDrifter and Zared had known Drago previously, and, as Zenith had, they well noted the changes his experiences had wrought. A certain weariness from his struggle through the Star Gate and some pain from his wound remained, but his face was otherwise determined. The resentment and bitterness that had so characterised the old Drago had gone, and the lines they’d left in his face were now humorous and bold, and added character, rather than emphasising his previous dampening blanket of futility. His skin was still pale, but the tincture of his violet eyes and copper hair gave him vitality and the appearance of endless energy; his wounding seemed to have brought no lasting damage to body or spirit. His was the lean, thoughtful face of a man in the midst of contemplative mid-life, but there was something else … something in his eyes, or perhaps in the way he held his head, that hinted at far, far more.
It was a face that not only projected a profound and reassuring calmness, but also invited a further exploration of the man it represented.
For her part, Leagh thought his face and his overall demeanour extraordinarily sensual, and that surprised her, for she had never thought of Drago in that manner previously. Casting her eyes about those grouped around the fire, then back to Drago, Leagh thought he looked like a prince who had just woken from a very long enchanted sleep, and who yet did not know the talents or weaknesses of the court that surrounded him.
Neither did they know him.
There was wariness about this circle, and a little suspicion, but the general sense was of an overwhelming curiosity.
“When I went beyond the Star Gate,” Drago began with no preamble, “I thought I had found all the love and all the meaning I had been searching for all my life. The Questors, as the five Demons called themselves, and the children and StarLaughter seemed so like me. All of us had been betrayed; all of us had seen our heritages stolen from us. It seemed so right to be with them. It seemed so right to aid each of them to regain their heritage as I needed to regain mine.”
He smiled, but it was sad, and faded almost as soon as it had appeared. “They said they would give me back my Icarii power. Oh, Stars! To regain my power! To be like Caelum, and Zenith! To be an Enchanter again.”
Everyone was quiet, watching.
“But the longer I spent with them,” Drago continued, “the more I came to realise that their hatred and bitterness and their need for revenge had twisted them. Darkened them. StarLaughter, and the children — they were once so powerful, and so enchanted. Now …”
Drago paused, and his hands trembled. He clasped them together. “Their thirst for revenge at all cost had made them nauseating. Worse, I realised that I was very much like them, and I could not bear that thought. I grew to despise myself.”
“Drago,” StarDrifter said. “Do not so hate yourself. Few possess the courage to acknowledge their own shortcomings. It would have been easy for you to drift away among the Stars, regretting what you’d done but making no effort to right your wrongs. You had the courage to come back, and face the fruit of your sin.”
“I had almost no choice, grandfather,” Drago said. “The Demons propelled me through the Star Gate. I could not have said no had I wished to.”
“Nevertheless,” StarDrifter said, “having come through the Star Gate you could have run for Coroleas, or made across the Widowmaker Sea. But you came here, to face those who have most cause to hate you.”
Gods, Askam thought, his face carefully hidden in shadow, Drago has everyone convinced he is the hero of the moment, doesn’t he. But what if, StarDrifter, you feathered idiot, Drago still aids the Demons? What if Axis is right, and Faraday is wrong?
Drago shrugged aside StarDrifter’s words. “In actual fact, I first planned to die, for I did not particularly want to come back. But then,” he raised his face and smiled at Faraday, “the Sentinels spoke to me —”
“The Sentinels!” Faraday’s green eyes widened. “They are alive? You saw them? Did they come back?”
Drago smiled at her excitement. “Yes, they live, but no and no to your other two questions, Faraday. I did not ‘see’ them, for they are spirit only, and they did not wish to come back through the Star Gate, preferring to spend their eternity drifting among the stars. They love you, Faraday, but they did not want to come back.”
“Are they still arguing?”
Drago laughed, and most about the fire smiled at the sound. “Yes, they still argue. I think the stars must ring with the music of their debates.”
“So, they helped you to survive,” StarDrifter said.
“Yes, but only after they persuaded me to aid Caelum and Tencendor as best I can.” Drago sighed. “Not that Caelum will accept my help.”
“Drago, do not blame him for that,” Zared said.
“I do not. Instead I reproach myself for creating such a fear within him.”
“And now?” DareWing asked. This sitting about and listening to confessions was all very well, but there were over thirty thousand men and Icarii standing about, waiting for direction.
For the first time an expression of uncertainty crossed Drago’s face. “I want to help,” he said, “but —”
Faraday put a hand on his shoulder, interrupting him. “There are many things that I have come to know over the past few months,” she said, “and, regrettably, few that I can tell you for the moment. In time, it will become Drago’s story to tell, and I ask only that you wait.”
“Faraday —” Zared began, as eager as DareWing to make a start to something.
“Hush. Listen to me. At the moment none of us know much, but that can be remedied. First, may I ask what you all know, and understand?”
“Demons, through the Star Gate,” Herme put in. “They have ravaged this land.” Briefly, he gave details of what hours were safe to venture forth, and what not.
“And we are thankful, Lady Faraday,” Theod said, smiling and inclining his head at her, “that before the Demons broke through you spread the word that safety could be found indoors during those hours the Demons ravaged. Without the warning, most of Tencendor would be lost.”
“As it is,” Zared said, “our scouts at the edge of the forest report seeing crazed people wandering the plains, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups.”
“And there are also herds of livestock,” DareWing added. “Animals that are caught in the grey miasma of the Demonic horror seem to behave … most peculiarly. As if they, too, have gone mad.”
Faraday’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. She had not thought about the animals. “Do you know why the Demons have come to ravage?” she asked, pushing the conversation forward. They could think about the animals later.
“To find what lies at the foot of the Sacred Lakes,” Leagh said, “in order to resurrect one of their number, the worst of all. Qeteb, the Midday Demon.”
Faraday nodded. “The answer to all our woes must lie at the foot of the Sacred Lakes. All I know is that Drago and I must go to the Cauldron Lake, as soon as we can. What is there needs to speak with Drago.”
Everyone, including Drago, started to speak at once, but Faraday hushed them.
“I will take Drago there, and once we get back … well … once we get back I hope that we will have some answer to our current dilemma.”
“Cauldron Lake?” Zared said. “But that is far south. It will take you days to get —”
“Seven or eight days to get there and back,” Faraday said.
“What?” Zared exploded. “Wait! A week? Gods, Faraday! Tencendor lies ravaged and you say, ‘Sit here and smile and wait a week’.”
“Zared,” Leagh said, glancing at Faraday. “What can we do but wait? Where can we go? We cannot move beyond the shelter of this forest for more than a few hours at a time, and that is no time to get an army anywhere. We must wait. Drago — what will you be able to tell us when you get back?”
“Leagh, I don’t know. I am sorry.”
Zared sighed, accepting. Leagh was right. They needed some answers. “Well, at least take two of our best horses. You might as well move as fast as you can.”
Faraday laughed. “I thank you, Zared, but no. My two donkeys can carry us, and they know the way well enough.”
Faraday sat awake late into the night, watching as Tencendor’s army slept curled up in blankets or wings in an unmoving ocean spreading into the unseeable distance.
Drago lay close to her, and she reached out, hesitated, then touched his cheek briefly.
He did not stir.
She sighed, and turned her gaze to the forest canopy, needing to sleep, but needing more to think. She was appalled by the scene earlier, and the face of hatred Axis had chosen to show Drago.
All Axis could see in Drago was the malevolent infant, using every power he had to try to put Caelum away so that he, DragonStar, could assume the name and privileges of StarSon. Faraday could hardly blame Axis and Azhure, and certainly not Caelum, for their distrust of Drago — but it was going to make things difficult. Very difficult.
At that thought Faraday almost smiled. Here she was fretting at the fact that Drago’s parents did not welcome the prodigal son with open arms and tears of joy, when beyond the trees ravaged such misery that SunSoar quarrels paled into insignificance.
But to counter the misery there was Drago. And somewhere, secreted within his craft, there was Noah. Between them, those two must somehow prove the saving of Tencendor.
Faraday let her thoughts drift for a while, content to listen to the sounds of the sleeping camp. Somewhere a horse moved, and snorted, and a soldier spoke quietly to it. The sound of the man soothing the horse made Faraday think, for no particular reason, of the stunning moment when Sicarius had leapt to the aid of Drago. Drago? Faraday knew how devoted those hounds, and especially Sicarius, had always been to Azhure, but she also remembered that for thousands of years they had run with the Sentinel, Jack, and she wondered if their origins lay not in Icarii magic, but deep below the Sacred Lakes.
Perhaps no wonder, then, that Sicarius had leapt to Drago’s defence.
There was a slight movement at her side, breaking Faraday’s thoughts.
She looked down. Drago had rolled a little closer, and now lay with his head propped up on a hand.
“Faraday — what did I come through the Star Gate as? You transformed me somehow, back to this form … but what did I come through the Star Gate as?”
“You came through as a sack of skin wrapped about some bones.”
A sack, he thought … an empty sack, just waiting to be filled.
“And the rosewood staff was with me?”
“Yes. You insisted on searching for it before you would let me drag you from the Chamber.”
Drago frowned slightly. “I can remember almost nothing of the Star Gate Chamber, or the first few hours afterwards. Everything, until I woke refreshed in the cart, is blurred and indistinct.”
Faraday remained silent, content to let Drago think.
“You evaded Axis’ questions about the Sceptre very nicely,” he said finally. “You know the staff is the Sceptre.”
“Probably.”
“I wanted to give it to Caelum. Damn it, Faraday, I stole it. It belongs to him, and he needs it back.”
She tilted her head very slightly so he could not read her eyes, and again remained silent.
“When Axis taxed me about the Sceptre I looked for the staff, intending to hand it to Caelum. But it had disappeared. Later, hours after Caelum and our parents had gone, I chanced upon it. Faraday, do you know where it was?”
She turned her face back to him again. “No.”
“It was in the blue cart.”
“It has its own purpose, Drago. And, undoubtedly, it did not want to be handed back to Caelum.”
He sighed and rolled onto his back, staring at the forest canopy far above. “Like all beautiful things,” he said, and glanced at Faraday, “I do not understand it.”
She bit down a grin, but he saw it anyway, and smiled himself.
“Why do you help me, Faraday? Why were you there in the Star Gate Chamber, waiting for me?”
“Someone needed to believe in you. I found that no hard task.”
“You evade very well.”
“It comes naturally to me.”
Drago smiled again. He did not know why Faraday was with him, or how long she would stay, but he hoped it would be a while yet. It was a vastly new and immensely warm feeling to have such a beautiful woman walk by his side and say softly at night, “I believe in you.”
Drago’s grin subsided and he silently chastised himself for romanticizing Faraday’s motives. It was obvious she knew some secret of Cauldron Lake, and it was that knowledge, or that secret, that kept her by his side. Like himself, she wanted only to aid the land, in any way she could, and at the moment she apparently felt the best way was to continue at his side.
He felt her fingers at his neck, gently feeling the bandage, and he looked at her. Gods, she was beautiful.
“Does the wound hurt?” she asked, trying to divert his attention.
“A little.”
She drew back. “It should heal without giving you too much trouble. At least your father has enough experience with a blade to give you a clean cut and not some jagged hole.”
“Then I am grateful for the small mercies of parental experience and skill,” he said, “for, frankly, I thought he had me dead on the sliding edge of that blade.” He paused, his own fingers briefly probing the bandage. “Faraday … at some point after you dragged me from the collapsing chamber I asked you who I was.”
He frowned. “Why did I ask that?”
“I have no idea,” she lied. “But do you remember that you answered your own question?”
He nodded very slowly. “And yet I do not understand my answer, nor the impulse that made me mouth it.
“The Enemy. I am the Enemy. What does that mean?”
“Go to sleep,” Faraday murmured, and turned away and lay down herself, and although Drago stared at her blanketed back for a very long time, she said no more.
Drago dreamed he was once again in the kitchens of Sigholt. The cooks and scullery maids had all gone to bed for the night, and even though the fires were dampened down, the great ranges still glowed comfortingly.
He smiled, feeling the contentment of one at home and at peace.
He stood before one of the great scarred wooden kitchen tables. It was covered with pots and urns and plates, all filled with cooking ingredients.
But something was missing, and Drago frowned slightly, trying to place it.
Ah, of course. Of what use were a thousand ingredients without a mixing bowl? He walked to the pantry and lifted his favourite bowl down from the shelf, but when he returned to the laden table, he found that the bowl had turned into a hessian sack, and that the plates and bowls on the table no longer contained food, but the hopes and lives and beauty of Tencendor itself.
“I need to cook,” he murmured, and then the kitchen faded, and Drago slipped deeper into his sleep.
Night reigned. Terror stalked the land. To the south of the Silent Woman Woods seven black shapes, a cloud hovering above them, thundered across the final hundred paces of the plain, and then vanished into the forest west of the Ancient Barrows.
Zared woke early, just as Drago and Faraday were rising and shaking out their blankets.
“Are you sure you won’t take two of my fastest horses?” he asked, standing up and buttoning on his tunic.
“No,” Faraday said. “The donkeys will do us well enough.”
“However,” Drago said, and his face relaxed into such deep amusement that Zared stilled in absolute amazement at the beauty of it, “there is one thing I would that you give me. I had a sack, and have lost it. Can you find me a small hessian sack? I swear I do feel lost without it at my belt.”
And he grinned at Zared’s and Faraday’s bemused faces.
Far, far away he stood on the blasted plain, wondering where his master was. Last night he’d dreamed he’d heard his voice, dreamed he felt him on his back. Was there a use for him, after all? No, no-one wanted him. He was too old and senile for any use. His battle-days were behind him. His legs trembled, and he shuddered, and the demonic dawn broke over his back.
7 The Emperor’s Horses (#ulink_61189561-539b-529f-a129-53dcb90ef2e8)
They sat, arms about each other, under the relative privacy of a weeping horstelm tree. Outside the barrier of leaves moved Banes and Clan Leaders, whispering, consulting, fearing.
Isfrael, Mage-King of the Avar, lifted a hand and caressed Shra’s cheek. She was still handsome in her late fifties, and even if the bloom of youth had left her cheeks, Isfrael continued to love her dearly. She was the senior Bane among the Avar — had been since she was a child — but she was beloved to him for so many other reasons: she was his closest friend, his only lover, his ally, his helper, and he valued her above anything else in this forest, even more than the Earth Mother or her Tree.
When Isfrael’s father, Axis, had given his son into the Avar’s care when Isfrael was only fourteen, it had been Shra who had inducted him into the clannish Avar way of life, and into the deep mysteries of the Avarinheim and Minstrelsea forests and the awesome power of the Earth Tree and the Sacred Groves. She had made him what he was, and he owed her far more than love for that.
“Can you feel them?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
He trembled, and she felt the shift of air against her face as he bared his teeth in a silent snarl. “Demons now think to walk this forest!”
She leaned in against him, pressing her face against the warmth of his bare chest. “Can we —”
“Stop them?” Isfrael was silent, thinking. He pulled Shra even closer against him, stroking her back and shoulder.
“Who else?” he whispered.
“WingRidge said that —”
“WingRidge said many things. But what has the StarSon done to help. Nothing … nothing. The Avar have ever had to fend for themselves.”
“Can we stop them?”
“We must try. Before they get too strong.”
Shra laughed softly, humourlessly. “They are strong enough now! Did they not break through the wards of the Star Gate? Isfrael — those wards were the strongest enchantment possible! Made of gods, as well as of the trees, earth and stars!”
“The Demons used Drago’s power to break those wards.”
They sat unspeaking a while, thinking of the implications of Isfrael’s words.
Then Isfrael trembled again, and Shra leaned back. His face was twisted into a mask of rage — and something else.
Nausea.
“Their touch within the trees desecrates the entire land!” Isfrael said. “I cannot stand by and let them stride the paths unchallenged. And see, see.”
His hand waved in the air before them, and both saw what ran the forest paths.
“See what abomination they have called forth,” Isfrael whispered. “I must act.”
The seven beasts snorted and bellowed, hating the shade that dappled their backs underneath the trees. They ran as fast as they dared. Their escort had not entered the forest with them, and they were fearful without the comforting presence of the Hawkchilds. So they ran, and as they ran the trees hissed and spat, trying to drive these abominations from the paths of Minstrelsea.
But something more powerful — and more fearsome — than the trees pulled the beasts forward.
Mot lifted his head, and laughed. “They come!” he cried, and the Demons rose as one from the rubble where they had been waiting.
StarLaughter scrambled to her feet, her lifeless child clutched tight in her arms.
“What comes?” she said. They’d been waiting here for days, and although the Demons had waited calmly, StarLaughter had been almost beside herself with impatience. Her child awaited his destiny — and all they could do was sit amid the ruined Barrows. This was all they had come through the Star Gate for? She lifted her head. Something did come, for she could hear the distant pounding of many feet.
There was a movement beside her, and Sheol rested a hand on StarLaughter’s shoulder.
“Watch,” she said, and as she spoke something burst from the forest before them.
StarLaughter’s eyes widened as the creatures approached and slowed into a thumping walk. She laughed. “How beautiful!” she cried.
“Indeed,” whispered Sheol.
Waiting at the foot of the pile of rubble were seven massive horses — except they were not horses at all for, although they had the heads and bodies of horses, their great legs ended not in hooves, but in paws.
StarLaughter thought she knew what they were. When she’d been alive — before her hated husband, WolfStar, had thought to murder her — she’d heard Corolean legends of a great emperor who had conquered much of the known world. This emperor had a prized stallion, as black as night, which had been born with paws instead of hooves.
The stallion had been as fast as the wind, according to legend, because his paws lent him cat-like grace and swiftness, and he was as savage as any wild beast, striking out with his claws in battle, and dealing death to any who dared attack his rider. No wonder the emperor had managed to conquer so much with such a mount beneath him.
And here seven waited. Tencendor would quail before them.
Seven, one for each of the Demons, one for her — and one, eventually, for her son.
“DragonStar,” she whispered, cuddling her child close, and started down the slope.
They rode north-west through the forest through the night, heading for Cauldron Lake. The Demons leading, StarLaughter, her child safe in a sling at her bosom, behind them. They rode, but it was not a pleasant ride.
The horses were swift and comfortable to sit, but they were unnerved by the forest.
StarLaughter did not blame them, for she hated the forest herself — no wonder the Demons wanted to leave it as quickly as they did. To each side, trees hissed, their branches crackling ominously above, the ground shifting about the base of their trunks as if roots strove for the surface.
Barzula laughed, but there was a note of strain in his laughter. “See the trees,” he said. “They think they can stop us, but all they can do is rattle their twigs in fury.”
None of the others replied. Mot, Sheol and Raspu were tense, watchful, while beside Barzula, Rox rode as if in a waking dream. This was night, his time, and terror drove all before it. Rox had his head tilted slightly back, his eyes and mouth open. A faint wisp of grey sickness slithered from a nostril and into the night. He fed, growing more powerful with every soul he tainted.
If the trees unnerved the Demons and StarLaughter alike, then even worse than the trees were the beings that slunk in the shadows. Scores, perhaps hundreds, of strange creatures crept, parallel with the path, through the forest. StarLaughter caught only the barest glimpses of them — but they were creatures such as she had never seen before: badgers with horns and crests of feathers, birds with gems for eyes, great cats splotched with emerald and orange.
StarLaughter did not like them at all. She tightened her hold about her son, and called softly to Raspu who was immediately in front of her: “My friend, can these hurt us?”
Raspu hesitated, then twisted slightly on his mount so he could reply. “Once your son strides in all his glory, my dear, this forest will wither and die, and all that inhabit it will run screaming before him.”
StarLaughter smiled. “Good.” She started to say something more, but there was a movement a little further down the path before them, and then a great roar tore into the night.
“Get you gone from these paths! Your tread fouls the very soil!”
The horses abruptly halted. They hissed and milled about agitatedly. StarLaughter peered ahead — and laughed.
Before them stood the strangest man she had ever seen. He wore only a wrap — a wrap that seemed woven of twigs and leaves, for Stars’ sakes! — about his hips, and was otherwise bare-footed and chested. His hair was a wild tangle of faded blonde curls, and two horns arched up from his hairline.
True, he had the feel of power about him, but StarLaughter did not think it was any match for what her companions wielded.
To one side and slightly behind the man stood a slender woman, dark haired and serene-faced, wearing a robe with leaping deer about its hemline. Her hand rested on the man’s shoulder.
StarLaughter’s lip curled. A Bane. How pitiful.
“Leave this place!” the betwigged man cried, and took a belligerent step forward.
“And who are you to so demand?” Sheol said pleasantly, but StarLaughter could hear the power that underlay her voice, and she smiled. This man was dead. The only question was who would strike the match.
“I am Isfrael, Mage-King of the Avar,” the man replied.
“And the woman?” Sheol asked. It was polite, perhaps, to find out the names of those about to die, but StarLaughter had always thought such niceties well beyond Sheol. Mayhap she was but toying with her prey.
“I am Shra,” the slender woman said. “Senior Bane among the Avar.”
“The Avar were ever troublesome,” StarLaughter said. “Grim-faced and petulant-browed. Perhaps it is time they were finally put away.”
Surprisingly, Isfrael smiled. “You do not like this place, do you. Why is that?”
Sheol shifted on her horse, and shot a look at Raspu, but when she spoke, her voice was even and calm. “It is a place that has no meaning, Mage-King. I do not like it.”
“You do not like it, Demon, because you cannot touch it.”
Sheol literally hissed, then she swivelled about on her horse. “Rox!”
The Demon of Terror slowly focused his eyes on the two before him, then his face twisted, and he cried out. “I cannot! The trees protect them!”
Isfrael smiled, and took another step forward. He raised a hand, and in it StarLaughter saw that he clutched a twig.
“You ravage freely across the plains, Demons, but know that eventually the very land will rise up against you.”
“When we are whole, we will tear this land apart, rock by rock, tree by tree!” Sheol said.
Isfrael’s grin widened … and then he threw the twig at Sheol.
Sheol knew what that twig was. It was not simply a twig, but the entire shadowy power of the trees that hurtled towards her.
She screamed in stark terror, reflexively raising both arms before her face, and then her scream turned into a roar and the twig disintegrated the instant before it hit her.
“Filth!” she screamed, and she grabbed the mane of her horse and dug her heels cruelly into its flanks.
The horse leaped forward, bellowing, its teeth bared, its neck arching as if to strike.
As if from nowhere, another twig appeared in Isfrael’s hand, and this he brandished before him. “Shra! Stand firm!” he cried. “I rely on you now as never before!”
The horse lunged, snapping at the twig, but it did not seize it.
“Filth!” Sheol screamed again, and now Barzula and Mot also drove their creatures forward.
Unnoticed, the seventh, and riderless, horse, slunk back a few steps until it merged with the night.
“Shra!” Isfrael murmured. As mighty as he was, he still needed her power to sustain him. The three black beasts roiled before him, snapping and snarling, swiping their claws through the air.
Yet still they held back, so that their teeth and claws came within a finger span of Isfrael, but did not actually touch him.
“The very land will rise up against you!” Isfrael shouted one more time, and at his shout the trees themselves screamed.
Shra staggered, almost unable to control the power that Isfrael was using. She could feel it rope through her, feel it burn up through the soles of her feet where they touched the forest floor, flood through her body, and then flow into Isfrael through her hand on his shoulder.
All the Demons were screaming now, unstinting in their efforts to drive their mounts forward over this man before he could bring the full power of the trees to bear upon them. The air before Isfrael was filled with the yellowed teeth of the horses and the fury of their talons — but he was holding, and with luck he might even manage to drive the Demons back.
The seventh horse abruptly materialised out of the darkness behind Shra. Utterly silent, it surged forward, reared up on its hind legs, and then brought all its weight and fury to bear in one horrific slashing movement of its forepaws.
Neither Shra nor Isfrael had realised it was there. All their concentration was on the Demons before them, on driving them out, on … Shra’s eyes widened in complete shock, and she staggered backwards, breaking the contact between her and Isfrael. Claws raked into her flesh from her neck to her buttocks, ripping the flesh apart to expose her spine.
“Isfrael!” she cried, and collapsed on the ground.
At the loss of contact Isfrael spun about — to see the massive beast tear her apart. Blood splattered across his face and chest.
“Shra!” he screamed.
Behind him the horses lunged, but as they did so Isfrael dropped to his knees by Shra’s side under the flailing paws of the black horse, and tried to scoop her into his arms.
The other horses, the screaming Demons on their backs, milled above the two, biting and slashing.
StarLaughter, who had kept her own steed back, sat and smiled. The scene reminded her of the kill at the end of the hunt. She could see nothing save the plunging bodies of the horses, the Demons — now laughing and screaming hysterically — on their backs. Or almost nothing, except for the scattering drops of blood that flew through the air.
“A Mage-King,” she murmured to herself. “How utterly, indescribably useless.”
And then something swept past her.
She spun about, gasping. It was so fast that she did not get a good look at the creature — all she had was an impression of white. Of white, and of horns.
Something horned.
An owl fluttered down from the forest canopy and nipped at StarLaughter’s hair.
She screamed, crouching over her baby.
Something else slithered out from between the trees — a snake, but a snake with small wings just behind its head. It sank its teeth into her horse’s back paw, and the creature panicked and bolted, careening into the bloody melee before it.
StarLaughter, clinging desperately to the horse’s mane, and trying to protect her baby, only had momentary impressions of the nightmare her horse had plunged her into.
The Demons were now silent, fighting an enemy that she could not immediately see.
Horses’ heads, rearing back, eyes rolling white with terror.
A bloodied mess on the ground, and the horses’ paws and lower legs thick with ropy blood and flesh.
The Mage-King — still alive — slowly rising, his face terrible with vengeance.
All StarLaughter wanted to do now was escape, any way she could. She fought to free her hand from her horse’s mane, but it was tangled tight. Her wings beat futilely, trying to lift her from the horse’s back, but she couldn’t free herself, she couldn’t free herself, she couldn’t —
Suddenly a white form rose, almost as if from the very earth beneath her horse.
StarLaughter screamed in utter terror. A huge white stag reared before her, and then it plunged down, sinking its teeth into her horse’s neck.
Both beasts writhed, both trying to gain the advantage. The stag’s horns razored through the air, inches from StarLaughter’s face, inches from her precious child — and still her hand was trapped in her horse’s forever-damned mane!
She screamed again, thinking herself finally dead, when Sheol, Barzula and Rox simultaneously drove their horses onto the stag. It let her horse go, and suddenly StarLaughter was free, her horse bolting down the forest paths, the Demons’ horses pounding behind her.
In the forest to the west, Drago’s eyes flew open, and he fought for control as panic and terror flooded through him. In some part of him he could feel the Demons, feel their fingers reaching into him, feel them draining him. He could barely control the impulse to rise and flee through the forest, flee from something horrid that nibbled at him, that sunk sharp teeth into his heels, that lunged for his soft belly with razored horns —
He rose on his elbows, his eyes jerking from side to side.
Faraday slept serenely by his side, and the ranks of soldiers that rippled out from Zared’s campfire likewise lay calmly, lost in sleep.
Finally Drago managed to control his sense of panic. He looked to the east, troubled, and after a long, long time drifted back to sleep.
They rode for an hour, and then, as their mounts finally slaked their terror, pulled to a halt in a glade.
“When Qeteb walks again we will raze this forest to the bedrock!” Sheol screamed, turning her horse so she could see back the way they’d come, as if she might still see Isfrael standing there.
“Every one of the creatures that hide here shall become our fodder,” Rox said, with more calm but equal venom.
StarLaughter looked between them, shaken to the very core of her being. She’d thought the Demons completely invulnerable, she couldn’t believe that …
Sheol turned to stare flatly at her. “It is this forest. It is too shady” she said. “But we will grow stronger the more we feed. And one day, one day …”
StarLaughter nodded. “How far are we from Cauldron Lake?”
The Demons relaxed, and smiled. “Not far,” Mot said. “We will be there in a day or so. And after Cauldron Lake, we will be stronger.”
He looked at the flaccid child in StarLaughter’s arms. “More whole.”
There was a movement overhead, and all jerked their heads skywards, expecting further attack.
All relaxed almost instantly.
Black shapes drifted down through the forest canopy. The Hawkchilds.
“Sweet children,” Sheol whispered as they landed, and dismounted from her horse so that she could scratch the nearest under the chin.
As a whole they tilted their heads the more easily to feel her fingers, whispering softly.
“I think,” Raspu said, “that it is time we put our friends to good use.”
The other Demons nodded.
“I admit to a dislike at being so ambushed,” Sheol said. She dropped her hand, and when she spoke again her tone had the ring of command about it, even though she spoke softly.
“Scout, my sweet children. Find for us those who think to stop us. Where are the magicians of this world? Where is this StarSon who thinks to rule from the Throne of Stars? And where the armies who think to trample us underfoot?”
Behind her the other Demons laughed, but Sheol continued without paying them any heed.
“Find for us and, finding, set those who run to our song against them. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” came back the whispered answer. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
“Then fly.”
And they flew.
Isfrael stood staring down the forest path for almost two hours. About him Minstrelsea’s fey creatures milled, touching him briefly, gently, grieving with him.
Eventually, Isfrael sank to one knee beside what was left of Shra. He stared a long moment, then he dropped his face into one hand and sobbed. He had loved Shra as he’d never loved another. She’d been the warmth of his youth, and the strength of his manhood. She had shown him the paths to the Sacred Groves, and she had inducted him into the laughter of love.
She had been his lover, his only companion, his only friend.
Isfrael bent down and wiped the fingers of his right hand through her torn flesh. Then he raised it and ran three fingers down his face, leaving trails of glistening blood running down each cheek and down the centre of his nose.
“By the very Mother Earth herself,” he said, looking again down the path where the Demons had disappeared, “this land will rise up against you.”
And then he rose, and walked down the path.
Towards Cauldron Lake.
Towards the man WingRidge had told him would aid Tencendor.
But Isfrael had changed. The debacle of the Demons’ passage through the Star Gate into Tencendor had suddenly become very, very personal. Now Isfrael had his own agenda, and the StarSon could be damned to a bloody mess if he thought to get in its way.
8 Towards Cauldron Lake (#ulink_a1c7dcdf-271d-535b-b6d9-f0ab12e76cf2)
“There was a disturbance last night,” Drago said I quietly to Faraday as he watched Zared rummaging through some gear for a sack. “In the forest.”
She looked sharply at him. “Yes,” she said. “To the southeast.” She twisted her thick chestnut hair into a plait. “How did you know?”
Drago hesitated, trying to put emotion into words. “I could feel it, somewhere within me. Terror and savage pleasure both. It was the Demons … but what happened I do not know.”
The feeling had disturbed Drago more than he revealed. It was almost as if … almost as if he had a bond with the Demons.
“Death,” Faraday said. “Death happened. But who or how I do not know. Only that the Demons were involved.”
She grimaced. The Demons were involved in every terror that struck Tencendor now. She watched Drago carefully as he walked a few steps away, pretending an interest in a saddle thrown carelessly against a tree trunk. He’d lapsed into his introspectiveness again, but Faraday was not surprised or perturbed by it. He needed to accept, and to explore, and for that he needed time and quiet.
There was a step behind her. Zared. In his hand he held a small hessian sack.
“Is this what you needed, Drago?” he asked. Zared was hesitant. There was something puzzling him about Drago, but he could not quite fix the puzzle yet in his mind, and that irritated him.
Drago took the sack from Zared, shaking it out. It was of rough weave, tattered about the edges, and with a small cloth tie threaded through its opening.
He smiled again. “It is perfect, Zared.”
He turned to Faraday. “Faraday, may I ask a favour of you?”
She frowned, still bemused by the request for the sack. “What?”
For an answer, Drago leaned down swiftly and took a sharp knife that was resting by the loaf of bread Leagh had just put out for their breakfast.
“A lock of your hair,” he said, and without waiting for an answer, reached out and cut a short length of Faraday’s hair that curled about her forehead.
She jumped, surprised but not scared. “Drago, why —?”
He grinned impishly, and dropped it into the sack. “I like to cook,” he said, and then laughed at all the surprised faces about him.
“Drago?” Zenith said. She and StarDrifter had just walked up. “What kind of answer is that? Look at us!” She gestured about to the circle of bewildered people. “Explain!”
“No,” he said, still grinning. “Sometimes an explanation would only confuse the matter. StarDrifter?”
StarDrifter shared a quizzical look with Faraday. “Yes?”
“Will you trust me enough to give me your ring?”
StarDrifter looked down at the diamond-encrusted ring on his finger. It was his Enchanter’s ring, although not the original, for that he’d given to Rivkah many, many years ago. He twisted it slightly. It was useless without the Star Dance, but still …
He looked up. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I will trust you enough. Here,” and he slid the ring off his finger and, as Drago opened the mouth of the sack, threw it in.
There was a brief glint as it fell into the darkness, and then the depths of the sack — and the lock of Faraday’s hair — absorbed it.
“Would you like me to contribute anything?” Zared asked, half-expecting Drago to lunge at his person with the knife to snip off whatever took his fancy.
“No,” Drago said. “I apologise for this mystery, but one day … one day I hope to explain what I do. There is one more thing I need, though. Leagh, will you take this knife,” he handed it back to her, “cut me a slice of that bread, and place it in the sack?”
She half-frowned, half-smiled, and did as he asked.
“I thank you,” Drago said quietly, and impulsively leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “And I am more glad than you know to see you and Zared together as husband and wife. Now, Faraday, perhaps we can eat before we go?”
They all sat, utterly intrigued by the scene, and accepted the bread, cheese and tea that Leagh and Zenith handed out.
Faraday chewed thoughtfully, watching Drago eat from under the lids of her eyes. He was growing into his heritage, and his destiny, by the hour.
It pleased her, and yet frightened her. Drago could save Tencendor — but not if the TimeKeepers came to understand who he was. No doubt the Demons were moving towards Cauldron Lake, and what would happen if they met her and Drago?
They had believed Drago dead — what would they think, what would they understand, if they saw him in the flesh? But what did it matter what they knew or understood? No doubt the Demons would do their best to kill them anyway.
“Be careful,” Zared said, and Faraday jerked out of her thoughts, and nodded.
“Can we take some of this bread with us, Leagh? I do not know if we will find much on our way.”
“Take what you like,” Leagh said, and shared a glance with Zared. “Faraday, what are you doing? None of us understand what —”
Drago leaned forward and touched his fingers briefly to her lips. “Wait,” he said.
Zared, watching, suddenly realised what it was that had been fretting at his mind. Since Axis, Azhure and Caelum had left, command had passed to Drago.
And everyone had accepted it.
None of us wait on what Caelum or Axis might do, Zared thought, but only on Drago. We have all turned to him, even though very few of us realise it yet. We wait for Drago’s word.
“I wish you luck,” Zared said, and stepped forward to grip Drago’s hand and arm in both his hands.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t have accepted Zared’s offer of the horses?” Drago asked, squirming about on the donkey’s ridged back. The forest had completely closed in about them, absorbing even the sounds of the donkeys’ hooves, and it seemed that Zared’s camp was more like a week behind them rather than two or three hours.
Faraday smiled a little to herself. “Uncomfortable, Drago?”
Drago sighed, and patted the donkey’s neck. “I can understand why you like these beasts, Faraday, but for Stars’ sakes! Surely they’d be better left to run free through the forest?”
“They are safe,” Faraday said without thinking, and then wondered why she’d said it. “Safe,” she repeated, half to herself.
Drago turned his head slightly so that he could watch her. A shaft of sunlight filtered through the forest canopy, and touched her hair so that deep red glints shimmered through the chestnut.
Drago’s breath caught in his throat.
She lifted and turned her head to face him fully. “My beauty has never helped me, Drago. Never.”
“And yet you are not bitter?”
She shrugged a little. “I have spent many years consumed by bitterness, Drago — and you of all people should know that bitterness does not help, either.”
Drago let that pass. “Faraday, who do you take me to meet?”
“A … man, I suppose … a man called Noah. Noah exists within the Repositories at the foot of the Sacred Lakes, and he asked me to bring you to him.”
She explained to Drago how, when he’d unleashed the power of the Rainbow Sceptre in the Chamber of the Star Gate, the light from the Sceptre had enveloped the Faraday-doe and wrapped her in vision.
Faraday laughed, a trifle harshly. “And you do not know how I had come to loathe visions, Drago. As a young, naive and stupid girl I first laid hand on the trees of the Silent Woman Woods, and they imparted to me a frightful vision that propelled me into my dreadful service to the Prophecy of the Destroyer. And to WolfStar, that damned Prophet!”
Drago almost asked what had happened to WolfStar, but thought better of it. “But this vision in the Chamber of the Star Gate …?”
“Was better.” Faraday smiled, remembering. “I was in a room — such a strange room, filled with twinkling lights and knobs, and with windows that commanded such a wondrous view of the stars — and a man rose from a deep-backed chair to greet me. He said his name was Noah, and that the room was within one of the Repositories at the foot of the Lakes, and he asked four things of me.”
“And they were?”
“He asked me to be your friend.”
“Ah.” Drago’s mouth twisted cynically. No wonder she walked by his side. She had promised to do so, and the world and every star in the heavens knew Faraday kept to her promises, even though they might be the death of her.
“Drago, why must you find it so hard to believe that people can like you, even love you?”
“Because for forty years I was told over and over that I was totally unlikeable.”
“And yet Zenith liked you, loved you, and believed in you.”
Drago let that hang in the air between them a while before he answered. “Zenith is special.”
Faraday smiled softly. “I think that one day you will find that all of Tencendor, and all of its people and creatures are also special, Drago.”
“Hmm. Well, what else did this Noah ask of you?”
“He asked me to be your trust.”
Drago nodded, knowing that over the past day many had decided to trust him only through their trust of Faraday. “And?”
“Third, he asked me to bring him to you — and that is what I do now.”
“Fourth?”
“Fourth, he asked me to find that which was lost.”
“Am I among the lost, Faraday?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Most definitely.”
Just as Faraday finished speaking, Drago’s donkey snorted and tossed her head in alarm.
Something had seized her from behind.
Above the plains of Tare a black cloud wheeled and whispered. The old speckled blue eagle, now watching from a vantage point under the roof of one of the watchtowers on the walls of the city of Tare, shifted, ruffled its feathers, then opened his beak for a brief, low cry.
It did not like the cloud. During those hours of the day when the eagle had learned it was safe to venture out, it had flown as close as it dared to the cloud.
And that was not very close, for that cloud was dangerous, very dangerous.
It was composed of hundreds of … bird-things. The eagle did not understand them. They had the scent of the Icarii bird-people about them, but that scent was somehow tarnished and warped. They also carried the scent of hunting hawks, a scent the eagle was familiar with, for he had spent many a cold winter’s night huddled safe within a nobleman’s hawk stable murmuring love songs to unresponsive lady-hawks.
But as they were not quite Icarii, then they were also not quite hawks.
They behaved as a flock with one mind — yet that mind was not their’s, for the eagle sensed that the mind that controlled them was far distant.
These bird-things spent many hours of the day hunting and eating. They hunted anything that moved, horses, cattle … people. When they had spotted a target, the bird-things swooped, and tore it to pieces. Once they had fed — and they left nothing uneaten, not even a speck of blood — they rose again as one, and recommenced their whispering patrol of the skies.
There was a brief movement on the streets below, and the eagle glanced down, distracted. A group of three or four people, scurrying from one house to another, baskets of food under their arms. The people of this land had been almost as quick as the eagle to realise that certain hours of the day were … bad … to venture forth. Now they, like the eagle, spent the bad hours huddled inside, or under whatever overhang provided shelter.
Many — thousands — had not been so wise. In his forays over Tencendor, the eagle had seen bands of maniacal men and women, and groups of children, roving the land. Some had been ravaged by despair, some by terror, others by disease; still others by internal tempest so severe some extremities looked as though they had self-destructed.
And still others wandered, so hungry that they consumed everything in their path. For several hours one day the eagle had roosted under a chimney stack, watching in absolute horror as an aged man had literally eaten his way across a stony field. He had crawled on his hands and knees, and everything he touched that could be picked up he stuffed into his mouth and swallowed.
Stones, brambles, thorns, dried cattle dung — the man had even bitten off four of his own fingers in his quest to assuage his hunger.
He had died, eventually, by the low stone wall that had bounded the field. His internal organs had finally exploded with the weight of the rocks he carried within him. He’d died stuffing scraps of his bowel and liver into his mouth.
Sickened, the eagle had watched it all, and wondered if, eventually, he also would be caught outside when the badness billowed abroad.
Now he sat safe under the watchtower roof. The black cloud swooped low over a band of pigs that roamed savage and crazed to the west of Tare — yesterday, that band of pigs had caught and devoured several people trying to scrabble among the fields for some scraps to eat — and then rose into the sky again, and flew eastwards.
The eagle shuddered as their whispering sounded directly above him, and then slowly relaxed as they continued to fly westwards.
Drago lurched forward as the donkey bucked and kicked, and tried to grab at her brush-like mane.
But it was no good, and with a grunt of surprise, he slid to the ground.
He rolled to his feet immediately, grabbing his staff to use as a weapon — and then froze in utter astonishment.
Faraday already had her hands to her mouth, stifling her laughter.
The donkey bucked and kicked in a small circle, trying to dislodge what appeared to be a blue-feathered lizard that clutched at her tail trying with narrow-eyed determination to climb onto the donkey’s back.
Drago slowly rose to his feet, laid both staff and sack on the ground, and then cautiously approached the aggrieved donkey, holding out one hand and murmuring soothing words.
The donkey gave one final buck — the lizard still gripping her tail — and halted, trembling, allowing Drago to rub her cheek and neck.
The lizard gave a hiss of triumph, and then, with almost lightning speed, scrabbled up the donkey’s tail and onto her back.
Drago looked at it, looked at Faraday — who had quietened herself — and then ran his hand down the donkey’s neck and across her withers towards the lizard. He hesitated, then gently touched the lizard’s emerald and scarlet feathers just behind its head.
They were as soft as silk.
The lizard’s crest rose up and down as Drago scratched.
“What is it?” he asked, raising his eyes to Faraday.
“It is one of the fey creatures of Minstrelsea,” Faraday said. She explained how, when she’d planted the last tree for the forest, the borders between the forest and the Sacred Grove had opened, and Minstrelsea had been flooded with the strange creatures of the Groves. “I think it likes you.”
Drago grinned and ran his hand down the lizard’s blue back. “It’s beautiful,” he said, watching the shafts of light glint from its talons. “Entrancing …”
The lizard twisted a little, and grabbed at his hand with its mouth — and then began to wash the back of Drago’s hand with its bright pink tongue.
The donkey, grown bored, sighed and shifted her weight from one hind leg to another.
The lizard slipped, and Drago instinctively caught it up into his arms.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked helplessly.
“I think it wants to come with us,” Faraday said. “And as to what you are supposed to do with it … well, I think it expects you to love it.”
For the rest of that day, and all the next, they travelled further south through the Woods. The lizard travelled with Drago, curled up in front of him on the donkey, the crystal talons of its fore-claws gripping the donkey’s mane for purchase.
The donkey put up with it with some bad grace, her floppy ears laid back along her skull, and she snapped whenever the lizard slipped. But at night she did not seem to mind when the lizard curled up beside her for warmth.
On the morning of the third day they neared Cauldron Lake, descending through thickening trees, and Faraday indicated they should dismount and walk the final fifteen or twenty paces to the edge of the trees.
The lizard, silent and watchful, crawled a pace behind them, careful of its footing on the slope.
“There,” Faraday murmured as they stopped within the gloom of the line of trees. “Cauldron Lake.”
Drago’s breath caught in his throat. As with so many of the wonders of Tencendor, he’d heard tales of this Lake, but had never seen it previously.
It lay in an almost perfectly circular depression, the entire forest sloping down towards it on all sides. To their left, perhaps some two hundred paces about the Lake’s edge, stood a circular Keep, built of pale yellow stone. Its door and all its windows were bolted tight.
But it was the water of the Lake that caught Drago’s attention. It shone a soft, gentle gold in the early-morning sun.
Without warning, a vicious hand clenched in his stomach, and Drago gagged.
Faraday grabbed his arm and dragged him behind a tree.
“Look,” she mouthed, and pointed across the Lake.
On the far shore a blackness had coalesced, and spread like a stain. It took Drago a few minutes to realise that it consisted of seven black and vaguely horse-like creatures.
And the Demons and StarLaughter.
9 Cauldron Lake (#ulink_4b74243b-eed6-51df-b89c-a54c667c3952)
“Curse them!” Faraday cried softly. “Gods! I’d hoped we could get here before them!”
“Should we —”
“No,” Faraday said. “If we try to get to Noah now they will see us.”
Drago sank down to the ground. He felt physically ill this close to the Demons, and he wondered again at the bond that existed between them.
“Will Noah survive them?” he asked.
“He’ll have to,” Faraday replied.
She sat down next to Drago and regarded him with concerned eyes. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, briefly closing his eyes, then he managed a small smile for her. “I am sick with frustration, no more. All I want to do is to see this friend of yours, and find out what it is I must do to help this land. Yet here the Demons have arrived before us, and so we must sit, and wait, and hope there is still a Noah to speak to once they have done.”
She touched his arm briefly, but did not reply.
The Demons had not enjoyed a particularly pleasant ride through the Silent Woman Woods. Their encounter with Isfrael and Shra had unnerved them and, even though they grew progressively stronger each hour that they hunted, the trees had made their way difficult.
Tangled roots had snapped at them from the soft, treacherous soil.
Branches had dipped and swayed and snapped.
Leaves had flowed through the air, burrowing beneath robes and into corners of eyes.
And things had hissed and wailed at them from behind trees.
StarLaughter had been terrified, not only by the malevolence of the Woods themselves, but by the fact that the Demons seemed unnerved by them as well. Surely they were too powerful for such as this?
But maybe they needed the power of Qeteb before they could rise to their full potential.
And that power was not so very far away, surely. Soon Qeteb would be reborn, and her son would rise to his full potential.
And sometime, WolfStar, StarLaughter thought, hugging her child to her and casting her eyes about the shadowy spaces of the Woods, sometime we will catch up with you!
StarLaughter lowered her eyes, and looked about. They sat their mounts at the very edge of the Cauldron Lake, the five Demons staring silently at the strange, golden waters.
“Well?” StarLaughter asked.
There was a silence, and StarLaughter wondered if she ought to speak again, louder this time, but Rox finally answered her.
“Tens of thousands of years we have travelled,” he said in a voice not much above a whisper. “Aeons. And here … so close …”
Sheol raised her brilliant sapphire eyes and stared at StarLaughter. “We must proceed carefully, for the Enemy will have laid traps.”
“But surely they are so old they will have lost their potency?” StarLaughter said. Why were the Demons always rattling on about traps?
Mot shook his head, then slid off his horse. Bones poked helter-skelter through his pallid skin, but his face had a satisfied plumpness about it. Mot had fed well at dawn.
He squatted down by the Lake’s edge, and ran a hand through the water. It glowed, and filtered between his fingers, but it did not run as a liquid would, rather … as a mist.
“Ssss,” the Demon said, and jerked his wrist so that the remaining globules of mist scattered over the surface of the Lake. They were absorbed instantly. “The magic lives, more potent than ever!”
“But not too potent for us, my friend,” said Sheol, joining him. “We will go down at dusk, I think, for that will give us the power of Raspu and then Rox. An entire night to ravage through this craft and find what we need.”
“Nevertheless,” Barzula said slowly, casting his eyes about the Lake. “I feel the Enemy powerfully here. We must be careful.”
“We did not come this entire way to waste our chance on thoughtless rush,” Sheol said shortly.
She sat down on the damp earth and crossed her legs. “StarLaughter, my dear, come join me, and let me cuddle your child.”
Across the Lake, Faraday and Drago likewise sat, hidden in shadows.
Drago’s eyes hardly blinked, so intent was he on watching the Demons.
“Why do they wait?” Faraday asked.
“They wait for their time,” Drago said. “It is only just noon. They will wait for the sun to set.”
“And then?”
“And then they will leap.”
It grew dark earlier within the trees than elsewhere, but the Demons waited until the entire land was wrapped in dusk before they began.
First they stood in a perfect line on the shore, about a handspan back from the water’s edge.
Raspu, whose hour was at hand, stood in the centre of the line, his head tilted back slightly, his eyes closed, the veins in his neck taut and throbbing.
A grey haze enveloped his head, and tendrils lazily lifted off and floated into the night air.
“What is happening?” Faraday whispered.
“He is feeding,” Drago said. “As that grey mist spreads, so does pestilence sweep the land, gathering to itself all those who are not within some kind of shelter.”
“Why did they wait until now?”
“Now they have the longest time span in which to work — from dusk to dawn. Once Raspu’s time is done, then Rox will spread his terror over the land for the entire night. See, even now Rox prepares himself.”
Faraday grimaced. Rox was trembling — so violently she could see it even from this distance — and his mouth was working; every so often his lips would tighten into a silent snarl, showing slippery, yellowed teeth.
Something about him, not his actual appearance, but something else, reminded Faraday vividly of the Skraelings and she shuddered.
Now all the Demons were trembling violently, almost convulsing. Behind them StarLaughter paced back and forth. Her child, as always, was tight in her arms.
One of the Demons — Drago could not tell which — screamed, and StarLaughter cried out and jerked to a halt.
Behind her, the dark horses milled and tossed their heads, pawing at the ground, although whether in fear or ecstasy, Drago could not tell.
The Lake began to boil — to seethe.
“What is happening?” Faraday whispered, one of her hands clutching Drago’s arm in tight fingers.
“They are channelling the power Raspu and Rox have gathered into the water.”
“But they are —”
“Destroying it. Yes, I know. Faraday, I … I don’t think this Lake will ever be quite the same once the Demons have worked their will with it.”
Faraday remembered what she and Zenith had seen when they’d walked the shadowlands: Grail Lake burned so completely away that the waters had disappeared to reveal the Maze beneath. A Maze that had grown to envelop Carlon. A Maze that had held such horror Faraday could hardly bear to remember it.
She lowered her head and closed her eyes. This was a beloved Lake, and she could not bear to see it die.
The next instant her head jerked up and her eyes opened as a sharp crack sounded behind her. She twisted about, and gasped. The trees were writhing and moaning, their bark splintering, yellowish cracks appearing in trunks and branches alike.
“Drago!”
“I can do nothing, Faraday. What do you want me to do? What? Whatever I am supposed to be, or supposed to do, lies at the foot of this Lake — at the moment I can do nothing!”
Faraday linked her arm through his, and leaned against him. “I’m sorry, Drago. I … this Lake is special to me. It is hard watching it die.”
“They are all special,” Drago said, and somewhere in a corner of his mind came the unbidden thought, And they will all die.
No!
The scene before them had turned into a nightmare. The water was boiling, great bubbles breaking the surface to send gouts of golden mist spurting into the night air. Soon the trees nearest the water’s edge were laced with tendrils of gold.
The Demons were forcing the Lake to empty out its life over the Silent Woman Woods.
Beyond the seething water the Demons still stood in a line, but they were rocking and twisting violently, and screaming and shrieking unintelligibly. StarLaughter was crouched at one end of the line, by Sheol’s feet, staring at the water.
She was laughing.
Suddenly the entire Lake exploded.
Drago threw himself over Faraday, rolling her as far behind the nearest tree as he could get her. He felt something crawl over his back, and almost screamed before he realised it was the feathered lizard. It scrambled under one of his arms and thrust its head under the neckline of his tunic, its feet scrabbling, trying to drive itself completely inside.
“Cursed —” Drago began, catching at the lizard with one hand, trying to prevent it getting any further, when a frightful silence fell as suddenly over the Lake and forest as the explosion had erupted only moments before.
Drago slowly raised his head, Faraday beside him.
The lizard took the opportunity to scramble completely inside Drago’s tunic.
But even the frantic tickling of its feet could not tear Drago’s eyes from the sight before him.
The golden waters had vanished. Now the slope of the forest floor continued down, down, down …
Down into another forest, one not of wood and leaves, but of crystal and gold.
The Demons and StarLaughter had disappeared.
10 The Crystal Forest (#ulink_8bf1bc6f-809a-517a-87ab-bf6d55168987)
StarLaughter stood and stared. She could hardly believe the beauty of the crystal forest. She lifted one hand and stroked the trunk of the tree nearest her. It was cool and solid, but somehow vibrant.
“Exquisite,” she said.
The Demons were grouped two or three trees beyond her. StarLaughter could see their dark and distorted forms through the transparent trunks.
“Dangerous,” Barzula said. He had his arms wrapped about himself, and his golden eyes flickered uncertainly at the trees.
StarLaughter walked up to them, slipping a little on the glassy footing, and noting that the golden leaves of the trees — and how smooth and silky they felt! — were exactly the same shade as Barzula’s eyes.
“Dangerous?” she said. “How so?”
Mot rounded on her, baring sharp teeth, but he pulled himself up at the look of surprise on StarLaughter’s face.
“A trap,” he said, and waved his hand about. A thousand hands reflected back at him from a myriad of trunks and branches. “This is a trap designed by the Enemy.”
StarLaughter frowned, and tightened her hold on her son. “You must not let it harm him.”
“Fear not, Queen of Heaven.” Sheol slipped an arm about StarLaughter’s shoulders and gave her a brief hug. “No harm shall come to your son. Now …”
Her tone suddenly brisk, Sheol turned to Rox. “How do we proceed? Which way?”
Rox shrugged. “Down. Everything slopes down. The Enemy’s craft is down. What we need is down.”
“Then why do we still stand here?” StarLaughter asked, raising one eyebrow. She shifted her son to a more comfortable position, and took a step forward. “Can’t you use your power to scry out the … the place?”
Rox looked at the others. “Shall I? It is my time — my power grows each minute as terror feeds off this pitiful land.”
“We need to move,” Raspu agreed. “If we stand about and wait the trap will only snap shut.”
But will it snap shut the instant we move? Sheol shared her thought with her companion Demons, but not with StarLaughter.
Rox looked her in the eye. There is only one way to find out.
Sheol nodded. “We must risk it. Let loose your terror, Rox. Shatter these trees, and find the hiding place for us.”
Rox smiled. He shifted so that he stood with his feet wide apart, and tipped back his head. His grin widened, became more feral, then he spread his arms out wide, his fingers trembling slightly … and screamed.
Terror raged through the trees. Every nightmare possible, every fear imaginable, every horror that was ever conceived, flooded rampant through the crystal forest.
Far away, hidden at the edge of the crystal trees at the point where it joined the waterways, WolfStar cried out and sagged to the floor. His breath cramped in his chest, his eyes bulged, and his limbs trembled.
His hands convulsed, and tightened about the tiny, cold corpse he carried.
“No!” he whispered, and then gagged.
In yet a different part of the crystal forest, the Survivor leaned against a tree, and grinned. His brown eyes danced with merriment.
“Predictable,” he whispered. “But foolish. Very, very foolish.”
Terror raged through the crystal forest. It bounced and jangled through the trees — and then it reflected, reflected back toward its source a thousand times stronger than it had been born.
Straight back to the Demons and StarLaughter.
It hit them with unimaginable force.
Every one of them, StarLaughter included, fell to the crystal floor, bruising flesh and jarring joints, their mouths opening for screams that never came because of the sheer weight of the terror that consumed them.
The baby slid out of StarLaughter’s arms, rolling downhill until he slammed against a tree and lay still.
Completely still, his eyes wide open and blank, unaffected by the terror that assailed those who cared for him.
As quickly as the terror had hit the group, it dissipated. Rox had withdrawn his power in the extremity of his own fright, and once the source was shut off, so the terror dimmed until there were only faint shadows left to chase each other through the forest.
Mot was the first of the Demons to recover. He struggled to his feet, his pallid flesh quivering.
“I had always wondered how the Enemy had trapped Qeteb,” he said hoarsely. “Now I know. They must have used his own power against him. They must have reflected it back at him!”
Sheol bared her teeth, arched her neck, and then howled, letting the sound echo through the forest a full minute before she shut her mouth with a snap.
“Then, knowing, we are the stronger,” she said. “No-one can ever use that trap against us again. Come, rise, and we shall set off on foot to find our stolen treasure.”
StarLaughter came out her fugue with a start, and suddenly realised that her child was missing. She cried out, then spotted him some paces away. She scrambled over on her hands and knees, ripping the hem of her robe where it caught under one knee, and gathered him into her arms, crooning softly.
“Was he hurt?” Raspu asked.
StarLaughter shook her head. “He is well, see how well!”
The five Demons were now gathered about her in a circle. They stared down at the unmoving infant, then lifted their eyes and stared at each other.
And smiled.
The Survivor ran one hand back through his silvered hair.
Then he straightened his black leather jacket with a tug at its hem.
“Good,” he said. “Good girl.” He patted the tree affectionately. “That scared them! Now, we may as well let them have what they want, and let them leave. No use holding them up any more than we have already.”
The Survivor smiled slowly to himself. “But that was fun to watch.”
Then he tensed, his eyes on a far distant form moving stealthily from tree to tree. He caught a brief glimpse of golden wings, and coppery hair.
WolfStar!
Noah swore. He hoped the Enchanter wasn’t going to make a nuisance of himself.
He stilled, watching the distant form carefully. Noah suddenly realised that WolfStar had outlived his usefulness by many, many years.
“Something should have been done about you a long time ago,” he murmured.
Then suddenly Noah’s face blanched, and his right hand clutched at his chest, and he forgot all about WolfStar as the craft wreaked their deadly havoc within him.
In the end, it wasn’t the Demons that Noah had to fear at all.
Sheol stood talking quietly to Rox, making sure he hadn’t been harmed too greatly by the sudden reflection of his power, then turned and gestured to StarLaughter and the other Demons.
“Come. Let us waste no more time here than we must.”
She turned and walked deeper into the forest, her feet slipping and sliding on the treacherous floor.
After an instant’s hesitation, the others followed her.
They found the going difficult and nerve-wracking. Feet constantly slid out from underneath them, and their hips and knees were continually jarred and bruised by sudden heart-lurching tumbles.
StarLaughter, her arms so tightly wrapped about her unliving son that they sunk into his flesh, had to spread her wings in order to maintain even the semblance of balance.
But even that worked against her, because the feathers invariably got caught in low-slung branches. Sharp crystal twigs dug into her feathers until blood speckled the path behind her, and she was constantly being spun about as a wing was securely lodged between branches.
StarLaughter gritted her teeth against the pain, and struggled forward. Damn all the Stars into eternal darkness that she no longer had her power!
And why didn’t she? Hadn’t the Demons promised that her power would be returned to her when she came back through the Star Gate?
Raspu caught her thought and paused, leaning a hand against a tree trunk to maintain his balance.
The ground was now sloping alarmingly, and yet the slopes below showed more tangled crystal branches and golden leaves for as far as the eye could see.
As StarLaughter drew level, Raspu slipped an arm about her waist and drew her tight and hard against him.
StarLaughter, her breath momentarily jerked from her body, looked into his eyes in fright — and then relaxed, feeling the power and warmth of his body against hers.
“Be still, Queen of Heaven,” Raspu whispered, his breath warm against her cheek, his arm still warmer about her waist. “Power shall be yours, but you must wait a little longer for it. Once our own power has been strengthened by this Lake, then we will have some to share with you. A different power than what you once commanded, but still power.”
“Of course,” StarLaughter said, accepting. “The Star Dance is no more, is it?”
“No,” Raspu whispered, and leaned down to softly brush her lips with his. “No more.”
The Demons struggled lower and lower. No more tricks leapt out at them, but their tempers grew progressively shorter as they went deeper, until they lashed out as they stumbled, their arms and hands striking twigs and leaves from branches, leaving a scattering of crushed crystal and trampled leaves in their path.
“Where?” snapped Sheol.
“Where?” snarled Rox.
“What is wrong?” StarLaughter whispered, now walking close to Raspu.
“It must be here somewhere!” he said, then jerked to a halt. “Wait!”
“What?” Sheol asked, turning to look at him.
Raspu stilled, sending his awareness slinking out between the trees. There was something … something …
“Something is out there!” Mot said.
“What we are looking for?” StarLaughter asked, her eyes bright.
Raspu shook his head slowly.
“Something … else. Something … watches.”
Noah stilled in his efforts to get back to his craft. Pain still arced through his chest and arm, but it wasn’t as fierce as it had been previously.
Or maybe he was simply getting used to it.
He raised his head slightly and peered about. Could the Demons see him? Sense him somehow? He tried very hard not to even breathe. No doubt the pain they would visit on him should they catch him would be even worse than this he currently endured.
Noah remembered the horror that had been wreaked on his own world, the frightfulness of the campaign to trap Qeteb, and he shivered.
“Drago,” he mouthed soundlessly, and looked up through the crystal-clogged slopes rising above him. Drago!
And agony such as he could not have even imagined knifed through his body.
“It feels almost like the Enemy,” Sheol said, a deep frown twisting her face. “I remember how they felt, how they tasted. And this tastes so familiar.”
Rox shook his head. “It could not be. They were mortal, they could not still live.”
“But still,” Raspu said, and looked about. “Still … there is something out there.”
“But it is not a danger,” Mot said briskly. “Come.”
And he set off again.
The other Demons looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him, Raspu holding StarLaughter’s hand.
But still they kept their awareness sensing out about them.
They found what they where looking for eventually, when they were so tired and impatient that they were at the point of sinking their teeth into each other.
It sat before them, bubbling quietly.
“Warmth!” Sheol whispered, and sank to her bruised knees.
StarLaughter stood, staring, unable to believe that after so long, the first of the jewels of the Grail stood before them.
A large, spreading pool of blood in the very pit of the crystal forest, gently steaming and bubbling.
“Yes!” Raspu screamed … and then lunged at StarLaughter.
She pulled back instinctively, her arms tight about her son, but Raspu was far too quick and far too strong for her, and he yanked the baby from her arms.
“Yes!” he cried again, and tossed the baby towards the pool of blood.
The child arced through the air — and then fell, hitting the pool with a sickening heavy-wet splash.
Blood splattered out in a great circle where he had hit the pool, covering both the Demons and the nearest crystal trees.
StarLaughter cried out in horror, her hands to her face. Her child had gone! Disappeared!
“Wait,” Raspu said, his voice now calm. “Wait.”
Every one of the Demons was now still, tense.
Waiting.
Suddenly there was an agitation within the pool of blood, as if it were being stirred by an unseen hand, and then something floated to the surface.
A child.
But an infant no longer. A toddler of perhaps three or four. A boy, his hair thickened and clotted by the blood in which he floated, his eyes closed under gelatinous clumps of the stuff, his pale skin made rosy by the blood running off him.
“DragonStar!” StarLaughter cried, and waded into the pool.
She sank to her thighs almost immediately, but she struggled on, the blood rising up through her pale blue gown and soaking her breasts and wings. She lunged for the boy, missed, lunged again, and grabbed him by the hair, pulling him to her.
“DragonStar,” she whispered this time, and drew the boy to her, offering him her slimy, crimson breast.
The nipple plopped out of his unresponsive mouth, but there was a difference in him — and the difference was not only his size.
StarLaughter looked up to the Demons anxiously standing at the edge of the pool.
“He is warm,” she said, tears slipping down her cheeks. “He is warm!“
WolfStar watched from his hiding place twenty paces distant. He lay flat along the forest floor, his head raised only enough so that he could see through the transparent roots before him.
This was his first sight of the Demons — and of his wife, StarLaughter.
He was shocked that after four thousand years she could still rouse emotions in him. There she stood, so dark and beautiful, her coagulating robe clinging to the body he still remembered, could still feel.
And in her arms, their son.
DragonStar.
No, he thought, trying to drive down his feelings for StarLaughter —
— remember the nights they had shared? Remember the love and the laughter?
And remember also that she plotted to take your place on the throne, and conspired with our unborn son to that purpose.
— no, not DragonStar. Qeteb. Born and yet unborn.
StarLaughter was willing to let a Demon inhabit the body of their son.
WolfStar’s lips drew back in a silent snarl. No wonder he loathed her. She had deserved her death, and he wished she’d been made to suffer more than she had.
Perhaps he could still arrange it.
The Demons grouped about StarLaughter, drenched in clotted blood and now standing out of the pool. As their hands patted at the boy, and their faces bent to kiss him, WolfStar slithered carefully forward, one hand dragging the tiny corpse behind him.
There. Again! Raspu thought, sharing it only with the other Demons.
Who?
What?
Where?
WOLFSTAR!
Yes, Raspu nodded to the others. WolfStar.
StarLaughter, unaware of what was going on about her, crooned and laughed at her child, one hand trying to wipe the clots of blood from his body.
What should we do? What is he doing?
They considered, their jewel-like eyes sharp.
Watch, Sheol thought, and the others silently agreed. Watch — and learn what it was that WolfStar did here.
Raspu laid a hand on StarLaughter’s arm and pulled her gently back up the slope.
“It is time to leave, Queen of Heaven,” he said. “Time to move to the next site.”
“Yes.” StarLaughter had a great smile of happiness on her face. “Yes.”
As they moved off, Barzula lagged behind, concealing himself with power and keeping his senses focused on the blood pool.
Thus he was aware when WolfStar furtively ran forward to the pool, now considerably smaller in circumference than previously, and threw in his own still corpse.
A tiny girl bubbled back to the surface, as still as the male-child had been, but just as warm.
Barzula frowned, only barely repressing the urge to confront WolfStar — how dare he use the pool! — when he stopped himself, and smiled.
They could use this. Indeed they could.
And so he hurried after the other Demons, formulating his plan as he ran.
Drago pulled Faraday back down to the ground when the Demons emerged, sheltering her with his body.
Both drew in shocked breaths at the appalling sight of the bloodied StarLaughter carrying a toddler.
“Look!” Faraday whispered. “Look!”
Drago nodded, his face composed but thoughtful. “Their first goal is achieved. Qeteb now warms.”
“And they? The Demons?”
“Will be stronger now. More confident. They have braved and won the first of the obstacles. They will know they can win through the others, as well.”
StarLaughter sat, the child in her lap, completely absorbed in him. Her eyes shone soft and happy.
A few paces away the Demons stood huddled, talking urgently.
“WolfStar?”
“He had an infant that he threw in?”
Barzula nodded. “The corpse of a girl-child. I do not know what she means or is to him that he so dares.”
“And she …?”
“She was … warmed.”
“How dare he?” Rox seethed. “How dare he —”
“Wait,” Barzula said, and laid a hand on Rox’s arm. “We can use this.”
“Use? How?”
And Barzula spoke.
After a few minutes all the Demons nodded, their eyes glowing with satisfaction.
“And StarLaughter?” Sheol asked.
“She will not like it at first,” Barzula said, “for she aches for revenge. But she will accept, and then she will approve. Think how much sweeter the revenge will be!”
Sheol gurgled with merriment, startling StarLaughter into looking up.
All the Demons were laughing, and clapping their hands. They must be pleased for her son, she thought, and smiled at them.
Sheol quietened as she watched StarLaughter. She turned to her companions. “Is it time?” she asked. “Should we?”
They considered the possibilities, finally nodding.
“A little,” Raspu said. “Not too much.”
“Just enough,” Sheol agreed. “Enough so she can be useful —”
“— but not a threat,” Mot said.
StarLaughter, her head once more bent to her son, looked up as she heard the TimeKeepers approaching. Their faces were gentle, their jewel-bright eyes loving.
“When you originally came to us,” Sheol began softly, “we promised you power for your help.”
Her eyes shifted to the boy-child in StarLaughter’s lap. “Now we are on the final path, our goal is in sight, and we have come to fulfil our promise. Stand.”
StarLaughter obeyed, her eyes hungry. Rox stepped forward, and took her shoulder in his hands. “Beautiful woman,” he whispered, and kissed her full on the mouth.
Power flooded through StarLaughter. Her mouth gobbled at his, desperate for more of the sweet stuff, but Rox pulled away, laughing.
Barzula stepped forth, and offered StarLaughter his mouth. She clung to him, drinking in as much power as he was willing to give her, and then almost fell when he pushed her back.
StarLaughter regained her balance, and clung to each of the other Demons in turn as they let her feed from their mouths.
As Sheol, the last, pushed her away, StarLaughter tried to understand the power that now flooded her. It was not Icarii power, and not tied to the now-silent Star Dance, but something far different — and far, far more exhilarating.
“I thank you,” she whispered. “Now I shall be a true mother to my son.”
The Demons smiled.
Faraday swallowed her revulsion as the Demons gathered StarLaughter to them. Once they had done, they mounted their dark horses, moving back through the Silent Woman Woods.
“Drago,” she said, “it is time we went. Noah told me that we could find a way down through the Keep —”
“No.” Drago laid a hand on her shoulder and pushed her gently back down. “You stay here. I want to do this by myself. Please.”
“But how will you —”
Faraday never finished. With a low cry the feathered lizard stuck its head out of the neckline of Drago’s tunic, looked about, then scrambled forth.
Drago almost fell over with the strength of its exertions, and grabbed at the nearest tree for support.
The lizard scuttled for the border between the Woods and the crystal forest, and then jumped between the first two of the crystal trees, its feet scrabbling on the slippery surface.
Drago looked at the lizard, looked at Faraday, then shrugged helplessly. “It looks like I will have some company after all.”
“Be careful,” Faraday said.
Drago stood looking down at her, very still. Her face was upturned to him, her eyes bright with concern.
Hesitantly Drago reached out a hand, then stopped it before his fingers touched her face.
“Wait for me,” he said, then turned and walked between the first trees of the crystal forest, one hand now on his sack, the other hefting his staff.
11 GhostTree Camp (#ulink_116efc4d-d15a-59dc-be7d-dc9b5d1a6a07)
Fleat was an old, old woman. She had seen more than seventy Beltides, she had seen her daughter and her husband’s second wife, Pease, torn to pieces by Skraelings, and she had seen this man who sat before her now drive the Destroyer and his minions from Tencendor.
She had thought to be able to die in peace, but that was not to be. Now another force invaded, far more vile than anything the Destroyer had thrown at them, and this man before her was utterly helpless.
Her eldest son, Helm, was now the leader of the GhostTree Clan. Grindle had died twelve Beltides ago, and since then Helm had done his father proud. Now Helm was watching his wife, Jemma — eight-months pregnant with a child that would surely be born into darkness — serve Axis and Azhure with malfari bread and the flat-backed fish she’d caught earlier in the day.
Both accepted the food, bowing their heads in thanks, but refrained from eating until Jemma had served Caelum, a little further about the fire, and sat down herself.
The twenty men and horses were camped fifteen paces about a bend in the path. Helm had not felt comfortable with them so close, and had wondered how Minstrelsea could tolerate their weapons.
Maybe, Fleat thought, the forest thought the weapons a lesser evil than the one that currently slithered through her southern skirts. Well, and wasn’t that the case? Even weapons were palatable when compared to the TimeKeeper Demons.
Helm lifted his fish, slicing it open with a thumbnail, and laid layers of fish on his malfari bread.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
Azhure fingered her bread, unable to bear the thought of eating it, but knowing that not only did she need the strength, Jemma would be gravely insulted if she left it.
So she broke off a piece, looked at Fleat, remembering how the GhostTree Clan had once taken her in when no-one else seemed to want her, and responded to Helm’s question.
“We travel north,” she said. “To Star Finger. The Maze Gate,” Azhure briefly explained what it was, “has told us that Caelum is the one to defeat Qeteb.”
She put the piece of bread into her mouth and discovered to her astonishment that she was ravenously hungry. She began to chew enthusiastically.
“How,” Fleat asked, her voice still strong despite her age, “if the Star Dance is gone?”
“We will find a way,” Axis said. He looked about the circle of faces, lingering on Caelum’s. “You must all believe that. We will find a way.”
Some of the tension among the Avar of the GhostTree Clan dissipated. Axis had always found a way previously, and he would again this time.
Helm swallowed his mouthful of bread and fish. “There has been word from the southern borders of the forest, StarMan.”
“Yes?”
“Shra is dead. Slaughtered by the TimeKeepers.”
Azhure cried out, her hands to her face. She locked eyes with Axis, who was as horrified as she. Both of them remembered the day they had first met, that scene in the cellar of the worship Hall of Smyrton. Raum, half dead; Shra — a tiny child then — almost completely dead. Touched beyond words, Axis had gathered Shra into his arms and had instinctively sung the Song of Recreation over her. Then, he’d been BattleAxe of the Seneschal, committed to fighting against the “Forbidden,” and had no idea he was of Forbidden blood and an Enchanter himself.
Shra was — had been — very special to both of them.
“How?” Axis said.
“Isfrael and Shra confronted the Demons, for they could not bear it that they so boldly walked the paths of Minstrelsea. They threw all the power they could command at them, and it was not enough.”
Axis and Azhure shared another glance, then one with Caelum. If Isfrael could not touch the Demons … then it would all be left up to Caelum.
“The Demons tore Shra apart,” Helm finished.
“And Isfrael?” Azhure asked. A tear trailed down her cheek.
“He lived. The Stag intervened, and saved him.”
Azhure nodded. The White Stag. The most magical beast in Minstrelsea. The creature that had once been Raum.
“Drago killed Shra as surely as if he had plunged a knife into her heart himself,” Axis said savagely, and Azhure laid a hand on his arm. She had little love for Drago, and none for the harm he’d done her family and Tencendor, but she wished Axis could move beyond his all-consuming enmity for their second son. What good would that do them now? She glanced at Caelum.
“Where is Isfrael now?” Caelum asked. Even if Isfrael had failed in his own attempt against the Demons, he would be a valuable — and powerful — ally later.
“I am not sure,” Helm said, “although forest whispers have him moving westwards through the trees. Perhaps to the Cauldron Lake.”
“Surely he wouldn’t think to attack the Demons there!” Azhure said. Isfrael was not of her blood, but she had raised him until he was fourteen, and loved him as much as she did Caelum.
“Mother, be calm,” Caelum said. “Isfrael is no fool, and I am sure he has a purpose to his movements. Trust him.”
Later, they lay curled in each other’s arms, not talking, listening to the other’s breath and heartbeat, and to the sounds of the Avar camp settling about them.
After a while Azhure lifted her hand and ran it softly down Axis’ cheek, letting her fingers brush against his short-cropped blonde beard and then down his neck to his chest. How she loved this man! She leaned down and kissed his neck, and then his chest.
“Think you to make love here and now?” Axis asked.
She grinned in the dark. “I was remembering Beltide.”
He smiled also, his hand stroking her back. “A long time ago, my love.”
“Perhaps we ought to recreate a little of its magic now. It might comfort us.”
Axis’ smile died. “There is no magic to recreate, Azhure.”
She lifted her head to study his face. “We will persevere, Axis.”
He was quiet a long time, his eyes distant. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet that, even as close as she was, Azhure had to lean yet closer to catch his words.
“If I had known that day in that rank cellar,” he said, “that Shra’s life would have been so needlessly wasted then I may never have —”
“Hush.” Azhure laid her fingers across his mouth. “Shra’s life was not needlessly wasted. She lived to a full age, and even if the manner of her death was …”
“Vile.” Axis’ voice now had a hard and dangerous edge to it.
“Even if the manner of her death was dreadful, then do not deny her life because of it.”
Axis was silent again for a few minutes, thinking.
Azhure thought she knew the trail of his mind, for his body had tensed. “Axis, nothing we did was useless.”
“Wasn’t it?” Axis’ voice was very bitter. “Wasn’t it? Was all the death, all the pain, all the suffering that I dragged so many men, that I dragged Tencendor, through, ‘worth it’?”
“Yes!” Azhure said. “Yes!”
“Damn you!” Axis said, angry not with her, but with the pain that had now been visited on Tencendor. “Damn you, Azhure! Between us we bred the son that is solely responsible for—”
“And between us we have bred the son who will be solely responsible for Tencendor’s salvation!” Azhure said.
“If we can find a way to give him the power to do so.” And the confidence, Axis thought, but did not voice it.
His despair and anger was deepened by the knowledge that, once, Azhure would have caught that thought with her own power.
No more.
“We will!” Azhure said. “Axis, with something so deep inside me that I cannot tell what it be, I know that Star Finger holds the key to Qeteb’s defeat! Iknow it!”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Azhure raised herself on one elbow and looked her husband full in the face. “If it doesn’t, then our task will be to witness Tencendor through its dying. And if that is fated to be our task, then let us do it gracefully.”
“Stars, Azhure …” Axis said brokenly, and she leaned down and stopped his words with a kiss. He resisted an instant, then his arms tightened and he pulled her close to him.
Even after forty years, even in the midst of this disaster, his desire for her had not slackened.
Five paces away, hidden under the gloom of a purple-berry bush, Sicarius lay with his head on his forepaws, watching them. The hound’s loyalty and love had been with Azhure for so very long that he now found it difficult to contemplate leaving her.
But he knew he would have to.
He had other loyalties, and other loves, far older than those he gave Azhure.
There was a movement behind him. His mate, a bitch called FortHeart. She nuzzled at his shoulder, and Sicarius shifted a little to give her room.
She too studied Axis and Azhure, then as one the pair shifted their heads to look south.
Caelum lay for a long time, listening to the sounds of the night forest, listening to the faint whispers of his parents, thinking.
He was glad that they were finally moving, finally doing something. He hoped his parents’ faith that Star Finger held the key was justified … for if it wasn’t, then there was no hope at all.
No, no, he couldn’t think that way. He had to keep hope alive … somehow. Star Finger did hold the key, and it would give him what he needed to free the land from the horror that enveloped it.
And then no-one, not even the ever-cursed Drago, could whisper behind his back that he didn’t have the strength or courage or resourcefulness of his father. No-one could ever say that he didn’t deserve to sit the Throne of Stars in his own right.
Drago. Caelum felt a coldness seep over him as he thought of his younger brother.
When I came back through the Star Gate all enchantments fell from my eyes.
Curse him! Curse him! Curse him! If Drago’s eyes were clear, then Caelum had no doubt that his brother was currently planning to scatter Caelum’s blood over all of Tencendor.
How could it be otherwise?
All this pretence of contrition was a foil for Drago’s deadly revenge and never-ending ambition.
“Stars help me,” Caelum whispered, “if Star Finger holds nothing but useless hope.”
He dreamed.
He dreamed he was hunting through the forest. A great summer hunt, the entire court with him. His parents, laughing on their horses. His brother, Isfrael, and his sisters, even RiverStar. It was a glorious day, and they rode on the wind and on their power, and all the cares of the world and of Tencendor seemed very, very far away.
But then the dream shifted. They still hunted, but Caelum could no longer see his parents or his brother and sisters. The hounds ran, but he could no longer see them either. The forest gathered about him, threatening now.
And now even his horse had disappeared. He was running through the forest on foot, his breath tight in his chest, fear pounding through his veins.
Behind him something coursed. Hounds, but not hounds. They whispered his name. Oh, Stars! There were hundreds of them! And they hunted him.
They whispered his name. StarSon! StarSon!
Caelum sobbed in fear. What was this forest? It was nothing that he had ever seen in Tencendor. He cut himself on twigs and shrubs, fell, and scrambled panicked to his feet.
Something behind him … something … something deadly.
Running.
He heard feet pounding closer, he heard horns, and glad cries. They had cornered him.
Caelum fell to the forest floor and cowered as deeply into the dirt and leaf litter as he could.
But he couldn’t resist one glimpse — even knowing what he would see.
DragonStar was there, wielding his sword, riding his great black horse. But now he was different.
He still wore his enveloping armour — but it was black no longer. Now it ran with blood, great clots that slithered down from helmet, over shoulders, hanging dripping from arms and legs.
Heat radiated out from him.
DragonStar’s voice whispered through his head. And so shall you run with blood, Caelum.
Caelum opened his mouth to scream, then halted, transfixed. Behind DragonStar’s horse stood a woman.
Dark-haired. Beautiful.
And on her face a predatory smile of unbelievable malignancy.
“Zenith?” Caelum whispered, and then said no more, for DragonStar’s sword sliced down through his chest, twisting and slicing, and, as promised, thick, clotted blood swamped Caelum’s throat and mouth, and flowed out over his chin and chest to drown the land.
12 The Hawkchilds (#ulink_b3b481cf-581c-549d-a9f3-a4257878bdf9)
F ind for us and, finding, set those who run to our song against them.
So Sheol had commanded, and so the Hawkchilds had done. In truth, they already knew much of what the Demons needed to know. Since their return through the Star Gate the Hawkchilds had flown virtually the length and breadth of their ancient homeland, watching, seeing, noting.
Where the armies that think to trample us underfoot?
There, in the north of the Silent Woman Woods. Many of them. Tens of thousands. Crouched about small campfires, waiting for who knew what.
Where the magicians of this world?
Those that are left crouch within the forests. That so few were left made the Hawkchilds whisper their glee to the darkened skies.
They were those of the earth and the trees, and while they retained some powers now, the Hawkchilds knew they would eventually lose it. When Qeteb walked again beneath the heat of the midday sun. When the trees were blackened stumps smouldering under his fury.
These magicians, these Avar, were impotent now and would shortly be completely useless. The best they’d had, Isfrael and the Bane Shra, had thrown themselves against the Demons, and had lost.
And so the Hawkchilds paid them no heed. They would pose little, if any, danger. They soared through the dawning sky, whispering joyful melodies. There was no magic left in this land that could touch the Demons.
None.
Where this StarSon who thinks to rule the Throne of Stars?
Harder. He was here, somewhere, in the forests, but the Hawkchilds could not spot him.
Their joy faltered, and they hissed.
Where this StarSon? His name is Caelum. Caelum SunSoar.
As one mind they soared and dipped, thinking. Eventually, as mutual decision was reached, twenty-seven of the Hawkchilds veered away from the main flock and flew east. Over Minstrelsea. Hunting. Tracking.
The main body flew westwards, seeking to carry out Sheol’s command. Find for us and, finding, set those who run to our song against them.
Easy.
They whispered their joy, and then broke apart, the Hawkchilds scattering over the entire land.
In the very south-western corner of the Skarabost plains, an old white horse stood in the rosy light of the dawn, hunger raging unnoticed about him.
He slept, dreaming of glory days past.
Sheltering on the ground under the shade provided by his belly, the ancient speckled blue eagle sat fluffing out his feathers in utter indignation that he’d been driven to find such shelter from the Demonic Hour.
But this was all there was, and somehow the eagle felt a kinship with this senile old nag.
Overhead there was a rustling, and a whispering.
The eagle started, terrified, knowing that what hunted was worse than the most crazed Gryphon.
But the Hawkchilds swept over, not minding the horse or the bird he sheltered. As if they had not seen either of them.
Little did either horse or eagle know it, but apart from the fey creatures of Minstrelsea, they were among the very few sane creatures left alive in the plains of Tencendor.
Five times during the day and night, the Demons sent forth the grey miasma, carrying their horror throughout Tencendor. The peoples of the land came to know that if they stayed indoors during those times and tightly shuttered doors and windows, then they could not be touched.
It was a dismal existence, but it was an existence.
Tencendor’s fauna were not so fortunate.
Apart from the creatures of the forests, or those livestock who were continuously sheltered within barns or even homes, most of the creatures of Tencendor had been touched at one time or another over the past few days by the Demons.
Touched, and changed. Birds, badgers, cattle, pigs, snakes and frogs. All changed.
All now running to the song of the Demons.
The Hawkchilds hunted them down. Most of the creatures were roaming uselessly through grain land or the plains. And over the next few days all were visited by one or two of the Hawkchilds.
Whispering instructions.
An army in the northern Silent Woman Woods.
Destroy.
A myriad thousand people sheltering in Carlon.
Destroy.
Scores of hamlets and isolated farmhouses, still sheltering those who refuse to heed the sweet song of madness.
Destroy!
And when you roam, you will find the two-legs who, like you, have been touched. Absorb them into your flocks and herds. Use them.
The brown and cream badger led forth his slaughterhouse band at the behest of the Hawkchilds. He was tired of the years spent huddled in his burrow hiding from the horsed hunters after his fur.
Now was his time.
The Hawkchilds flew west and found a further friend huddled in a pool of weak sunshine outside the walls of Carlon.
A patchy-bald grey rat, sick of a lifetime of torture at the hands of the small male two-legs who ran the streets of the city.
In the city, tens of thousands of people crowded inside tenements, hiding from the Demons.
The Hawkchilds whispered in the rat’s mind, and it turned its head back to the walls rising above it and bared its yellowed teeth in what passed for a grin.
Now was its time.
13 The Waiting Stars (#ulink_a58f7334-ec8f-5c94-9472-8245b959036d)
Drago hesitated at the edge of the crystal forest, and then stepped onto its slippery floor. He paused and, as StarLaughter had done, rested a hand on the trunk of the nearest tree.
It was warm, and solid, and somehow comforting.
Drago dropped his hand and straightened, his eyes surveying the forest before him. He took a deep breath, then stepped forward, following the flash of blue feathers between the trees below him.
Like the Demons, he walked for hours, marvelling that the forest extended so far. Always the feathered lizard scrabbled, and sometimes slid, two or three trees in front of him, leading him downwards.
In time the creature stood before a blackened crust that lay on the forest floor in a small glade. Drago stopped, and looked about him. He could feel the faint resonance of Demons in this place. What had they done here? He looked down at the crust. The feathered lizard was snuffling about its edges, reaching out one claw to scrape hesitantly at the stuff. His talons came away encrusted in flaky red filth, and the lizard backed off, hissing.
“What is it, my friend?” Drago said, squatting by the lizard and stroking its feathers. “What is this …”
He dropped his hand to the crusty stuff, and made a sound of disgust as his fingers touched it. Dried blood! Drago screwed up his face and stood, rubbing his fingers free of the crumbling flakes.
His fingers stilled, and he bent down again, scraped up a handful of the blood and dropped it into his sack.
His other hand momentarily tightened about the rosewood staff, and without thinking, Drago lifted the staff forward and scraped away a part of the blood.
He fell motionless, and looked awhile, and the lizard raised its eyes and studied Drago curiously.
“I think,” Drago said tonelessly, “that we have reached our destination.”
Underneath the dried blood was a trapdoor.
Grimacing, Drago bent down and swept away as much of the blood as he could. Then he lifted the door, revealing a well of steps circling down into darkness.
Much as, had Drago but known it, steps had once led from each of the Ancient Barrows into the Chamber of the Star Gate.
“Well,” Drago began, speaking to the lizard, but he got no further, for the lizard had leapt into the stairwell and was already slithering and sliding his way down.
Drago smiled, and stepped after him.
He did not walk very far down the narrow, twisting staircase before it opened into a corridor that stretched some fifty paces, ending in a circular door. The lizard was snuffling about its hinges.
Drago stepped onto the smooth, grey metallic floor of the corridor, and paused to study it. The floor was slightly levelled out, but only about the width of an arm, otherwise the passageway was completely circular, rising to a point about half an arm’s length above his head. The roof of the corridor was lit by gently-glowing circles, each a pace apart down its entire length. The walls were cool to the touch, but vibrated very gently.
As if they were alive.
A line of inscriptions ran at shoulder height down the walls. Drago stared at them, then lifted his staff and compared the inscriptions set there with those on the wall. They were the same, the strange black circles with feathered handles rising from their backs, running in a dancing, weaving line.
“These ancients,” Drago said to the lizard, “had a strange script indeed.”
Then he walked down to the door and inspected it.
There was no handle, although one side had hinges. Obviously it opened. But how?
Drago pushed, but with no success. He frowned, his fingers tapping gently against the door. On the wall by the door was a recessed rectangular section, filled with nine slightly raised knobs of the same cool, grey material as door and corridor.
Drago stared at them, then slowly raised his hand and rested his fingers on the raised knobs.
Instantly his mind flooded with an extraordinary vision.
Two old men, one short and squat, the other tall and thin, had marched down this very corridor once.
Drago’s frown deepened. Who? One of the men turned and spoke to his companion, and Drago recognised the voice instantly. They were the Sentinels, Ogden and Veremund, and this was the doorway by which they had accessed the Repository.
He watched as the vision unwound itself.
The Sentinels walked to the spot he now stood, and the tall one, Veremund, lifted his hand and placed it as Drago now had his placed.
Then he had hummed a fragment of melody, and his fingers had danced accordingly.
The memory faded, although the short melody lingered; it was a part of the same tune the Sentinels had taught him before he’d been dragged back through the Star Gate.
Drago stood, almost as if in a trance, replaying the vision over and over. Then, in a flash of inspiration, Drago realised that Veremund had transferred the melody into a pattern, and had then transferred the pattern onto the raised knobs.
Drago ran the tune through his head, translating it from melody to pattern almost without thought. He transferred the pattern onto the rows of knobs with his fingers.
Instantly the door swung inwards with a soft hiss.
The lizard gave a soft cry and scampered through.
But Drago stood still, his head bowed, thinking. Something very, very important had just happened, and he struggled to understand it. He … he …
“Damn it!” Drago whispered. “What did I just do?”
He had used the pattern of melody to accomplish a purpose.
Is that not what Icarii Enchanters did?
And yet there was no Star Dance, no power, no magic. No enchantment left.
Drago shuddered, and the grip of his left hand tightened about his staff. He had not only opened a door, he had also just been taught something.
Ah! Frustrated, feeling that the answer danced just beyond the reaches of his mind, Drago put the problem to one side and stepped through the door.
It swung shut behind him.
Drago paid it no heed. Before him stretched yet another corridor, similar to the last with the pattern of feathered circles on the walls, but curving into a left-hand bend some twenty paces ahead.
Beyond the bend the corridor branched into two. Drago took the left-hand fork without hesitation and then, when it again branched, took the right-hand fork. It led into a flight of steep steps leading to a higher level, and Drago grinned as he imagined how the two Sentinels would have grumbled about climbing them. Somehow, their presence was still very much here.
There was a large rectangular room at the top of the steps. The walls were literally smothered with the feather-backed circles. Metallic racks stood in three ranks, almost empty, save for half a dozen glass jars.
They were empty.
Drago looked about. There were three doors, rectangular now, in the far wall, each of them open. Which one?
From the door on the far right came the faint hum of vast power, but Drago understood he should not take that one.
He walked through the middle doorway instead. Before him stretched yet another corridor, but very short, and ending in yet another doorway through which … through which Drago thought he could see stars.
Stars?
Hesitant now, Drago walked down the corridor to the door, took a deep breath, and stepped through.
He stood in a strange room. The walls, ceiling, benches and even parts of the floor were covered with metal plates, and these plates were studded with knobs and bright jewel-like lights. Before him were the high backs of several chairs, facing enormous windows that looked out upon the universe.
One of the chairs before him swivelled, revealing a silver-haired man in its depths. He wore a uniform made of a leathery black material; gold braid hung at his shoulders and encircled the cuffs of his sleeves, and in his first glance Drago saw a black, peaked cap, gold braid about its brim, sitting on the bench behind him.
But it was the man’s face underneath his silvery hair which riveted Drago’s attention.
It was lined with care … and more. Agonising pain had scored a network of deep lines into the man’s skin. His right hand clenched spasmodically in the tunic over his chest, and he breathed erratically, great deep breaths that tore through his throat.
A slight movement distracted Drago’s attention momentarily. The blue-feathered lizard sat to one side under an empty chair, his black eyes unblinking on the man in the chair.
“Drago,” said the man, and Drago looked back to him.
“You are Faraday’s Noah,” he said, and then stepped forward to touch Noah’s shoulder. “What is wrong?”
Noah’s mouth twisted. “I am suffering the ill-effects of redundancy,” he said. “No, no, that is wrong. I am simply being recycled.”
“I don’t understand,” Drago said. He touched Noah’s shoulder again, leaving his hand resting there this time. “What can I do to help?”
Noah lifted his own hand to pat Drago’s. “First of all, you can sit down. Then you can listen and accept.”
“I meant,” Drago said softly, “what can I do to aid you?”
“Me?” Noah raised tortured brown eyes and looked into Drago’s violet gaze. “You can do nothing to help me. I am dying. After all this time, I am finally, finally dying.”
Then he grunted with pain, doubling over in the chair.
Drago dropped his staff and grabbed him, wanting to help, but not knowing what to do. In the end he just knelt by the chair and held Noah, trying to give some measure of comfort.
Noah managed to straighten. His face was slick with sweat.
“We have all been waiting too long,” he whispered harshly, “for me to die before I tell you what you must know.”
“All?” Drago said.
Noah lifted a trembling hand and pointed to the window filled with the tens of thousands of stars beyond.
“All of us,” he repeated. “The Stars.”
14 In the Chamber of the Enemy (#ulink_7454ae14-58b4-5933-b962-eb970becc9c4)
Noah looked at one of the empty chairs, as if considering asking Drago to sit in it, then gave a tired sigh and took Drago’s hand in his. He glanced at the newly-healed scar on Drago’s neck, but said nothing.
Drago settled on the floor, moving the staff to one side as the lizard crept over and curled up against his legs.
“Tell me,” Drago said, and Noah nodded, raised his head, and searched the panels under the window.
“Will you press the copper knob on the panel?” Noah asked, and Drago leaned over, hesitated, then firmly pressed a glowing knob.
Instantly the view from the forward window changed. The stars disappeared, and Drago found himself looking out on a world filled with mountains and valleys, plains and oceans.
He frowned. “I have not seen this place before.”
“Nay. This is not Tencendor, although it is much like it. It is my world. My home.”
Drago looked at Noah. Beneath his pain, the man’s face was lined with memory and regret.
“And its name?” he said.
Noah’s hand clenched a little more deeply into the black leather of his tunic. “Not important. For all I know it no longer exists. It has been hundreds of thousands of years since I have seen it.”
The view altered. There were the same mountains and valleys, plains and oceans, but all had changed.
Now they were a wasteland of pain and despair, of tempest, pestilence and starvation. Maddened people and animals roamed, tearing at their own bodies and at the bodies of any who ventured near them. Their eyes were blank save for their madness, and ropes of saliva hung from their mouths. All the people were naked, their bodies emaciated and covered with boils and streaks of rot. They lived, but in a hell that Drago could barely comprehend.
“The same world,” Noah rasped into the silence, “after the TimeKeeper Demons had come to ravage. Drago, listen to this my story.”
The view in the window shifted again, back to the stars.
“We do not know from where they came. We simply woke one morning to find half our world gone mad with hunger, and the pain continued through the day, and then into the night.”
Drago remembered how the TimeKeepers had leapt from world to world. No doubt they’d found some other poor soul to drain in order to enter Noah’s world.
“Hunger, then such tempest as we’d never before endured, and then midday — oh God! Midday!” Noah shuddered violently, struggled to control himself, then continued, his voice hoarse with the remembered horror.
“Midday is too terrible to even speak about — thank every god you pray to, Drago, that Tencendor has not yet been subjected to Qeteb’s malice!”
Yet. The word echoed about the spaces between them.
Drago studied Noah’s face. The man seemed in more pain than when Drago had first entered. “But you found a way to trap him.”
“It took us forty years, Drago.”
“Forty years?”
“Can you imagine,” he whispered, “what those forty years were like?”
“How did your people survive?”
“In caves and tunnels and basements, mostly. Drago, your first lesson, and one Faraday already understands, is that the Demons, even Qeteb, cannot touch any who rest under shade. They cannot work their evil in shade. For some reason, the mere fact of shade protects the mind and soul from their touch.”
There was more, but Noah was in too much pain to be bothered explaining it to Drago. The man would discover it soon enough, in any case.
“Ah, thus the forest keeps myself, Zared and his army,” Drago slid a glance towards the feathered lizard, “and all the fey creatures safe.”
“Until the Demons gain enough power to strip the leaves, yes.”
“And Qeteb? How did you manage to capture him?”
“With mirrors. We trapped him inside a chamber that was completely mirrored. He could not escape, and any power he used was turned back against him.”
“Mirrors? How could they —”
Noah grunted, and his face paled even more than it was already. He took several deep breaths, and then spoke rapidly, as if he knew he had not much longer.
“Mirrors … we mirrored him back to himself, we mirrored his hate back to himself. But …” Noah suppressed a groan, and momentarily closed his eyes, “unfortunately you will not have the same success now. The TimeKeepers are somewhat wary of mirrors and reflections.”
“And so you —”
“And so we — or those who had the skill among us, for not all among us commanded the strength — dismembered him. They took his breath and warmth and movement and soul and separated them.”
“His body?”
Noah shrugged. “It was useless. I think we burned it, although I am not sure.”
And thus the need for a new body to house Qeteb, thought Drago.
“No-one initially knew what to do with these life components,” Noah continued. His voice and breath were easier now, as if his pain had levelled out. “In themselves they were still horrendously dangerous. We tried to destroy them, but found we could not. The other TimeKeepers were doing their best to steal them back from us — and they were powerful. Too powerful for us to hold out against for very long.”
“So you decided to flee through the universe with them.”
“Yes. It was the best we could do. I volunteered to lead the fleet of craft —”
“Craft?”
Noah looked up at the chamber. “We sit in the command chamber of the command craft. The craft are, ah, like ships that sail the seas, but these sail the universe.”
Drago nodded hesitantly, struggling to come to grips with the concept.
“We set sail with four craft, one for each of Qeteb’s life components, for we dared not store them in the same place. It was a mission that all of us —”
“Us?”
Noah’s mouth thinned at the constant interruption — could the man not see he was in pain? “We had twelve crew members in each of the craft. Well, anyway, it was a mission that we all doubted we could return from.”
“You knew you would never go home again. Noah … who did you leave behind?”
Tears slid down Noah’s cheeks. “A daughter — my wife was dead. Her name is … was … Katie. It was … it was hard, but I went knowing she would live in a better world for my flight.”
Drago placed a hand on Noah’s knee. “I am sorry, Noah.”
“I know you are. Thank you. Well, we fled through the universe. For many thousands of years.”
Drago frowned, noting Noah’s deteriorating state. “You are immortal? How else could you survive a journey of so long?”
Noah gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Immortal? Nay, obviously not! Our craft were equipped with … sleeping chambers, I guess you can call them, and in these we spent most of our time. The craft were set with self-guidance systems, and we generally slept, trusting in them to do their best.”
Noah paused. “As a race, we had travelled parts of the universe before, but never so far or for so long as our fleet did. We did not realise what such lengthy travel through the stars would do to our craft.”
Noah paused, remembering, and this time Drago did not bother him with a question.
“Our craft were woken by the music of the stars,” Noah eventually continued. “And from that music they learned.”
“Learned?”
Noah did not speak for some minutes, and when he finally did, his voice was soft with wonder. “Drago, your Icarii race speak of the Star Dance, the music that the stars make as they dance through the universe. While we slept, the music of the Star Dance infiltrated the craft, changing them, creating an awareness that was not there previously.
“They changed, and were filled with a purpose of their own. They changed,” he repeated, as if still trying to understand it himself.
“Periodically we woke from our sleep to make sure the craft were operating normally. On one memorable occasion,” Noah actually managed a smile, as he remembered the shock of his crew, “we woke to find that the craft would no longer obey our instructions. We found ourselves passengers, as much cargo as Qeteb’s life parts.
“The craft altered course, heading for a different part of the universe than that which we intended to go.”
Noah paused, his face emptying of all expression. “Gradually, I became ‘aware’ of the craft, and of the music that filtered through the stars. No-one else among us did. I was the only one graced.”
“You were the only one picked.”
Noah’s mouth twitched. “Aye, Drago, you are right. I was the only one picked. I learned that the craft headed for a world — this world. I was appalled. Infect another world with what we carried? And with the other TimeKeepers?
“We knew,” he added, “that the five remaining TimeKeepers would follow us as best they could, hunting down Qeteb’s life parts. It was one of the reasons we fled through the universe, knowing that in doing so we would rid our own world of all the TimeKeepers.”
“And so you brought them to this world.”
Noah turned his head and stared out the windows. Faint starlight illuminated the scores of lines about his forehead and reflected the pain in his eyes.
“The craft brought them to this world,” he said softly, still not looking at Drago. “Not I. Not my race.”
“You thought only to flee, not thinking of the eventual consequences.”
Noah turned his eyes back to Drago. “Do not condemn us, Drago. Not you.”
Now Drago dropped his eyes. “Then why did the craft bring them here?”
“It has taken me a long time to come to this understanding, Drago. Let me speak, and do not interrupt me. What you hear will be hard.”
Noah swivelled his chair back to the windows. “Behold what will happen to your world when the TimeKeepers reconstitute Qeteb.”
When, not if? But the view in the window shifted before Drago had a chance to ask the question.
As Drago had seen the Demons ravaging Noah’s home world, now he saw them ravage Tencendor. Wasteland. Insanity. Deserts. People with no hope, nowhere to go. All beauty, love, hope and enchantment destroyed.
Drifting ashes where once had been forest.
Bones littering dust-swept streets where once had been cities.
Maddened animals ravening at will.
Horror.
Hopelessness.
“Tell me how to stop this!” Drago said.
The lizard stirred from its doze, lifted its head, stared at the image in the window, and then at Drago. Then it momentarily locked eyes with Noah.
Drago was too appalled by the vision of a devastated Tencendor to notice.
“I asked you to remain quiet,” Noah said, a note of command ringing through the pain in his voice. “What you will hear will be hard, and you must hear it all before you speak again.”
Drago jerked his head, apparently in acceptance. His violet eyes were very dark, and very hard.
Noah looked at him, and then waved a hand. The image of the devastated Tencendor was once more replaced with the tens of thousands of stars.
Drago relaxed very slightly.
“The craft brought Qeteb’s life parts to Tencendor,” Noah said, “because, drifting through the universe, they had come to the understanding that here, and here only, could Qeteb and his fellow demons finally be destroyed.”
Noah sighed. “Drago, you must allow the TimeKeepers to reconstitute Qeteb. Allow them to destroy Tencendor.”
“No!”
Noah did not chastise Drago for the outburst. He had the right.
“It is the only way to defeat him, Drago. Listen to me. We tried to destroy his life parts, and could not. But a whole Qeteb can be destroyed. This land is steeped in magic, although you — as so many of your brethren — are completely blind to it. Once Qeteb walks again, then, yes, Tencendor will become a true wasteland. The Demons will completely destroy it. Nothing will be left.”
Nothing save the existence it will gain through death, thought Noah, but knew he did not have the time to explain that to Drago. It was a knowledge better learned than told. “Nothing but its inherent magic,” Noah said. “And nothing but you.”
“Me? I came back through the Star Gate to aid Tencendor, Noah! To aid Tencendor and Caelum. Yet now you ask that I allow it to be destroyed.” Drago gave a bitter laugh. “Yet what else could be expected of Drago the treacherous, Drago the malevolent? No wonder all hate me.”
“Few truly hate you, Drago, although most are puzzled by you.”
“How will allowing Qeteb to rise again help? How can allowing Tencendor to be devastated —”
“Qeteb must be defeated this time, Drago. He must be dealt to death.”
Drago’s face was tight and tense, a muscle flickering uncertainly in his lower jaw. “How?”
“Listen,” Noah said, and he spoke for a very long time, his voice soft and desperate, his words tumbling over each other, and this time Drago did not interrupt at all.
When he finished Drago sat motionless, his own face almost as ashen as Noah’s, his eyes despairing. “No.”
“Yes. You have always known it.”
“No.”
“You knew it as an infant, it was instinctive knowledge! You acted badly, but you cannot be blamed for what you believed.”
“No!”
“You know it now. Why else that sack that hangs from your belt?”
Drago fingered it. “I … I just thought it …”
“Yes,” Noah said softly, and finally sat back down. “You just ‘thought’. Instinctively you knew it was necessary. Drago, from your parents you have inherited the magic of the stars and of this land. From … elsewhere … you have inherited the magic of this craft. You have been born and you have been made exclusively for this task. Qeteb will be defeated only by a combination of these craft — which are now entirely star music — and Tencendor’s enchantment.”
Drago shook his head slowly, trying desperately to deny what Noah had told him. “I cannot do this to Caelum again. I cannot.”
“You must.”
“I have already destroyed his life!” Drago cried. He scrambled to his feet and stared at Noah huddled in his chair. “Now you would have me feed him to the Lord of Darkness all over again?”
Drago took a deep breath. “He is the StarSon, Noah, and I will not again deprive him of that right!”
“I think you will find he may insist,” Noah said somewhat dryly.
“No,” Drago said in a very quiet and almost threatening tone. “Caelum is the StarSon. Caelum will meet Qeteb, and I will do everything in my power to aid him in that quest. I will not betray him again.”
“You have very much to accept,” Noah said quietly. “Very much.”
“I−”
“But if you want to do your best to aid Caelum and Tencendor, then do this. Go north, north to Gorkenfort. Seek your mother.”
“Azhure?”
“Nay,” Noah said, and smiled with such love that he unsettled Drago. “Your true mother. Your ancestral mother. Listen to her if you will not listen to me.”
And ignore her if you dare.
Drago stared at him, then slowly sank down to the floor before the dying man.
“How can I let Tencendor be destroyed?” he asked again, his voice breaking. “I came back through the Star Gate to save it, and yet you tell me to stand witness to its destruction! Would you have me deepen my sin against the land?”
Noah reached out a hand and gently cupped Drago’s chin. “You are a Pilgrim,” he said, “and all pilgrims must first learn their own soul, and the power of their own soul, before they can save anyone else. If you take but one piece of advice from me, Prince of Flowers —”
Prince of Flowers?
“— then take this. Go north, and listen to your mother.”
Drago was silent a long time. The lizard crawled into his lap, and Drago sat stroking it absently, his eyes unfocused.
When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy with acceptance. “I will go north to Gorkenfort. What else can I do?”
“The craft are not insensitive to the devastation that will occur. Somewhere within the waterways, I know not where for I have not been granted the knowledge, lies a sanctuary. A place of shelter. The craft would not let the peoples of this land suffer ultimate extinction. Do you understand?”
Drago nodded. “If the craft have that much compassion,” he asked, “then why do they let you die?”
“So that another may be reborn,” Noah said, but speaking with the voice of the craft.
So that another may be reborn? he thought, and then his eyes filled with tears as he understood what the craft were doing. They were using his life to create another, and the beauty of that other was enough for Noah to accept his death with gladness.
“Drago,” he said, “I have not much time. Will you tell Faraday something for me?”
“What?”
“Ask Faraday to find that which I lost. She will know. Now go, Drago. Go. I would die alone, as I have spent an eternity alone.”
Drago slowly stood, picking up his staff. “Goodbye, Noah.”
“Goodbye, Prince of Flowers.”
He sat in his chair in the empty chamber, staring at the screen full of stars, and let their love and comfort infuse him. He could feel the life ebbing from him, but it no longer hurt, and it no longer distressed him.
“Katie,” he said. “Be strong.”
His chest heaved, and again, then fell still.
In the dank basement, surrounded by dark and the stale air of a thousand years past, a light glowed faintly, and then flared into sudden brilliance.
When it faded, the thin voice of a desperate child filled the darkness.
“Mama? Mama? Where are you? I’m lost! Mama? Mama!”
The sacrifice had begun.
15 Hidden Conversations (#ulink_69a7490e-bc8f-5ca5-8ef3-ca3b8e4b682c)
Drago hesitated outside the doorway to Noah’s chamber, then turned back.
The doorway had closed behind him, and there was no longer a panel of knobs by which to gain access.
“How can I do this to Caelum?”
But no-one in this barren corridor, least of all the lizard, was going to answer him, so Drago took a deep breath and walked slowly back to the rectangular chamber.
Here he again hesitated. He’d meant to retrace his steps to the crystal forest, and from there to rejoin Faraday, but on impulse he took one of the other open doorways.
And found himself in the waterways.
Drago stopped dead. Before him a tunnel disappeared into the distance, a deep channel running down its centre. He walked to the white-stoned edge of the waterway and looked down. The river that ran there was deep emerald. In its depths shone the stars.
The stars are everywhere, thought Drago. Somewhere, surely, still lingers the Star Dance. But where? In these waterways? In the craft of the Enemy? Or will this puzzling “mother” awaiting in Gorkenfort tell me?
“We must find it,” he said aloud to the lizard, “if Caelum is to defeat the —”
“Did you listen to nothing Noah told you?” a soft voice said, and Drago spun about.
Walking along the banks of the waterway were WingRidge CurlClaw, Captain of the Lake Guard, and the unmistakable red plumage of SpikeFeather TrueSong behind him.
Where had they come from?
“What are you doing here?” Drago said, taking a step back.
WingRidge stopped a pace away, SpikeFeather just behind. Both birdmen studied Drago carefully, and both glanced curiously at the blue lizard under his arm.
“You know why we are here,” WingRidge said softly. His face was a mixture of awe, determination, and sheer unadulterated relief. He lifted a hand and placed it on Drago’s chest.
“You are here as I am here,” Drago said, a hard edge to his voice. “We must do all we can to aid the StarSon.”
WingRidge’s mouth curled. “And what do you mean by that, Drago?”
Drago stared at him. “Caelum needs our help.”
WingRidge inclined his head. “Caelum will need aid, assuredly.”
Drago looked at WingRidge, then at SpikeFeather standing obviously confused behind the Captain of the Lake Guard’s shoulder, then turned to look back the way he’d come.
“Noah told me … he told me …”
“I do hope you had the grace to listen, and the courage to accept,” WingRidge said, and now his voice was hard, and his eyes flinty.
Drago looked back at him. “Why are you here, WingRidge?”
“I am here to aid the StarSon.”
“Then why are you here?”
WingRidge remained silent, his eyes unblinking as they regarded Drago.
A muscle flickered in Drago’s cheek. “I came back through the Star Gate to aid Tencendor.”
“Good,” WingRidge said quietly.
“In whatever way I can.”
“Even better.”
“I did not come back to disinherit my brother!”
“There is no question of that.”
“Then we understand each other?”
WingRidge startled the others by bursting into laughter. “Yes, Drago, I think that we do. Now, in what direction did Noah set your wandering feet?”
“I must go north. To Gorkenfort.”
For the first time WingRidge looked mildly disconcerted, but with a languid shrug of his shoulders said, “North is good. You will meet with Caelum in the north, eventually.”
“Noah … Noah told me that Tencendor must die. We must allow Qeteb’s resurrection.”
“Surely we can stop the Demons before —” SpikeFeather began, his face horrified, but WingRidge turned about and placed a hand on the birdman’s shoulder.
“Trust,” he said. “Please. Did you not see this in the Maze Gate?”
SpikeFeather nodded unhappily.
“The Maze Gate?” Drago asked.
“Under Grail Lake lies a Maze,” WingRidge said. “Each of the craft have grown into different forms over the millennia. Here, the crystal forest cradled Qeteb’s warmth. The Maze cradles Qeteb’s soul. At the entrance to the Maze lies a Gate, and it is the script about the Maze Gate that the craft used to speak to … well, to whomever, over the aeons. The Maze Gate tells of many things. It, too, awaits the StarSon.”
Drago ignored the last remark. “And this Maze Gate speaks of Tencendor’s destruction?”
“It has been written,” WingRidge said, “and thus it must be. Do not dread it too much, Drago. Does not the field need to lay fallow for it to flower full bright in the season that follows the night?”
The man speaks in nothing but riddles, Drago thought irritably, and then remembered that Noah had also mentioned flowers. Prince of Flowers. He stared at WingRidge, and the captain smiled at him, his eyes now soft.
Still pondering the consequences of turning Tencendor into an uninhabitable wasteland, SpikeFeather had completely missed the exchange. “And Qeteb is to be allowed a resurrection,” he said. “How can this be?”
WingRidge did not look away from Drago as he answered. “How can the StarSon defeat a memory? A ghost? Only when Qeteb’s scattered life parts unite in flesh and blood can they be destroyed. Eventually, the StarSon and Qeteb will face each other.”
“And Caelum will defeat him,” Drago said.
“The StarSon will defeat him,” WingRidge said. “Will you agree to that, Drago? That the StarSon shall defeat Qeteb?”
SpikeFeather shifted, uncertain what to make of the conversation. He had the uncomfortable feeling that WingRidge and Drago were somehow weaving a hidden dialogue over and above their spoken words.
“I can agree to that,” Drago said softly. “The StarSon shall defeat Qeteb.”
“Then our purpose is as one,” WingRidge said. “We both serve the StarSon and we both serve Tencendor.”
He held out his hand, and after a brief hesitation Drago took it.
“That is an interesting staff you hold,” WingRidge observed, not letting go of Drago’s hand.
“You know what it is.”
“Aye. I know what it is.” WingRidge clasped his other hand over Drago’s, holding it securely between both of his. “The Sceptre. Never let it go.”
“But —” SpikeFeather said, remembering the entwined symbols of StarSon and Sceptre about the Maze Gate … and then suddenly the entire conversation between WingRidge and Drago fell into place.
“Ah,” he breathed.
WingRidge laughed again and let Drago’s hand go. “So you are to go north, my friend. Will Faraday go with you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. And your new friend?” WingRidge indicated the lizard, now leaning over the edge of the waterway and splashing at shadows with one of his claws, light glimmering in shining shards from his talons under and over the water.
“His intentions are hidden from me,” Drago said.
WingRidge cocked an eyebrow. “And you think I know? Not I. The beast is a mystery to me as well. What else?”
“You do not know?”
For the first time WingRidge looked uncomfortable. “If there is more, then, no, I do not know it.”
“Remarkable,” Drago said, but grinned to take the sting out of the remark. “Well, there is actually a little palatable news. Noah spoke of a Sanctuary somewhere within the waterways.”
“A Sanctuary?” SpikeFeather queried, and WingRidge narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. Sanctuary. This was news!
But Drago took no notice of WingRidge’s reaction.
“Gods!” he whispered, and shuddered. His eyes lifted upwards, as if he could see through the tons of rock above them. “I can feel the Demons on the move. Every hour they are on the loose more souls are lost.”
He dropped his gaze to the two birdmen before him. “I must go north, and I hardly know these waterways. Can I ask you to —”
“You know I serve no-one but the StarSon,” WingRidge said carefully.
Drago’s face worked. “Then in the StarSon’s name,” he said, grating the words out, “will you hunt for Sanctuary while I go north?”
WingRidge grinned at Drago’s discomfiture. “You had but to ask, Drago.”
SpikeFeather hesitated, not wanting to be the one to break the tension, but finally the words burst out of him:
“Drago, these waterways spread not only under the complete landmass of Tencendor, but leagues out under the oceans, too. It might take a lifetime — three lifetimes! — to find this ‘Sanctuary’.”
“Nevertheless,” Drago said, “you possibly have a few months. No more. It will not take the TimeKeepers long to travel between Lakes, and before then we … someone … must manage the evacuation of Tencendor.”
“A few months!” SpikeFeather muttered.
“I will help,” WingRidge said to him. “The Lake Guard will help. Won’t it be fun to keep company, SpikeFeather?” He threw an arm about SpikeFeather’s shoulders. “You and I. Brothers in quest.”
SpikeFeather glared at the Captain. He’d never seen WingRidge full of such high humour before. WingRidge kept his arm about SpikeFeather, but again addressed Drago.
“And once you have achieved your north and Gorkenfort, Drago? What then?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“Then I am sure your feet will find the right path,” WingRidge said softly. “Drago, there is something you must know. WolfStar haunts these waterways. With him he carries the corpse of a girl-child. I do not know why.”
Drago frowned, not sure what to make of this. What was WolfStar up to?
“Be careful,” he said. “If WolfStar has a hidden purpose, then he can hardly be trusted.”
WingRidge grimaced. “You hardly need tell me that, Drago. But don’t worry, my friend and I shall find this Sanctuary. Won’t we, SpikeFeather?”
SpikeFeather nodded, his mind full of the problems that conducting a search of the entire waterways would entail.
He’d spent at least fifteen years wandering the tunnels and had never had a whiff of this secret place — and Orr had never mentioned it. Had the Ferryman even heard of its existence, let alone known its location?
“Come,” WingRidge said, and took a step back along the tunnel. “We have a long —”
“Wait!” Drago cried, and touched the Captain’s chest as he turned back to face him. “What’s that?”
“This?” WingRidge looked down at the maze. “It represents the Maze, my friend. It represents my bond to the StarSon.”
Drago stared at him, then he deftly picked out a golden thread from the embroidery and dropped it into his sack.
Then he gave a smile, almost apologetic, turned and walked away.
The lizard scampered after him.
16 Destruction Accepted (#ulink_c78dc65b-211a-5d19-a235-db37b2dc8d87)
Drago retraced his steps through the craft and the crystal forest. When he finally entered the green shade of the live trees he stopped, hesitated, then turned and plucked one of the golden leaves from one of the crystal trees, and slipped that into his sack as well.
He was not sure why he did so, as he was not sure why he’d plucked the thread from WingRidge’s emblem nor collected some of the dried blood, in each case yielding only to a sudden urge.
“I am glad you do not ask questions!” Drago said to the lizard crouched beside him. It opened its mouth in a parody of a grin, and then bounded forward. Drago smiled to himself as he walked the final few paces into the Silent Woman Woods.
Faraday emerged from behind one of the trees, her face relaxing in relief.
“Drago!” She halted a pace away from him, her eyes searching his.
“Well?” she asked softly.
He stared at her, wondering what she knew. Did she also think …?
“You cannot hide from who you are,” Faraday said, watching the denial in Drago’s face, “nor from your heritage.”
She started to say more, but Drago cut her off.
“We have to go north. To Gorkenfort —”
Sudden emotion flared in Faraday’s eyes, but Drago did not see it.
“— where,” his mouth thinned, “I must meet with my mother. My ‘ancestral mother’. Do you know what this means?”
Emotion relaxed to puzzlement in Faraday’s eyes, but she did not question him. She shook her head. “What else?”
“And you are to find that which Noah lost,” Drago continued. “He said you would know what he meant.”
“Katie’s Enchanted Song Book,” she said. “It will, I believe, be a help against Qeteb.”
At the name of the Midday Demon, Drago stared into the trees at Faraday’s back.
He took a deep breath. “Faraday, Noah told me Tencendor must die and Qeteb must walk. How can I let this be? Gods, how can I let this?”
Faraday stared at him, almost unable to believe what he’d said, then she collected herself and gave him a brief hug. But all she could think of was the land dying, the trees toppling, the lakes disintegrating, the dust drifting … drifting …
She turned her head aside, not wanting him to see the tears in her eyes.
“It must be,” Drago repeated in a soft voice. He was still staring into the forest, almost unaware of Faraday, and certainly completely unaware of her own distress. “Whatever it takes, I will let nothing, nothing, stand in my way. I came back through the Star Gate to help Caelum and to save this land, and damn me to the pits of the AfterLife if I cannot repair the horror I helped sow.”
Faraday jerked her gaze back to his face, disturbed by his determination without quite knowing why. Drago would let nothing stand in the way of his quest. Tencendor would always come first in his affections and loyalties.
The land would always come first.
Faraday had known another man like that, and had been hurt beyond compare by him.
She turned away and walked back to the donkeys.
They took four days to move back to Zared’s camp. They could have moved faster, but both wanted to put off the moment when they would have to share their grim news with Zared. Both Drago and Faraday, each driven to chronic loneliness by either circumstance or choice, also needed the time to forge the bonds of a friendship that would prove comforting, but not taxing or dangerous or potentially painful.
Both found themselves very much aware of the other, and aware of the other’s reaction. For one that was a welcome surprise, for the other a frightening and unacceptable risk.
“Can you tell me what happened with Gorgrael?” Faraday asked one day as the thin Snow-month sun filtered down through the forest canopy and she caught Drago watching her from the corner of an eye. The lizard rode with her that day, curled up behind her back, snuggled between Faraday’s warmth and that of the donkey.
Drago nodded. His passage back through the Star Gate had shattered all the enchantments that had crippled his memories. “I came to awareness early.” His voice was very quiet. “I was growing in Azhure’s womb, RiverStar wrapped tightly about me. Maybe the third or fourth month of life. I knew even then that I had … that I had a task. I believed I should be Axis’ heir. I knew it!”
He turned to stare at Faraday. “I cannot know how. But I knew it. I was so stupid. I imagined a life full of greatness and pride, of reverence and of muscle-throbbing power. I thought of thrones and courts and the masses of Tencendor spread at my feet.”
Drago’s eyes slipped back to the path before them. “I understood the power of both my parents. I revelled in it. And I thought to be twice as powerful as them because in me was combined the power of both.
“And then … then I became aware of Caelum. Gods, Faraday, you cannot know the resentment that swept me! Another son? Born before me? A son that my mother rocked to her breast, only thin layers of flesh between us. A son that my father tossed high in the air and proclaimed StarSon.
“I thought that title should have been mine.”
To that Faraday said nothing. But now? she wondered. Now?
Drago glanced at Faraday, his mouth crooked. “Of course, I set about my ambitions all the wrong way. I wanted to escape from that womb and set things to rights so badly. The moment I knew I could survive beyond it I beat my way out, dragging RiverStar with me.”
“You almost killed Azhure.”
“I know that now. Then, I did not care. She was useless. She had done her task in breeding me.”
“And so you conspired with Gorgrael?”
Drago was silent a while before he replied, and when he did his voice was distant. “Yes. So then I conspired with Gorgrael. With his help, I hoped to be rid, not only of Caelum, but also of my parents. One or both of them would surely die in Caelum’s rescue.”
“You underestimated Azhure.”
“Yes. I surely did.” Drago sighed. “Gorgrael’s mind was so easily manipulated. My success with him blinded me to the fact that my parents might have greater power.”
“You were very stupid.”
Drago stared at her, but let the remark lie. “Then I almost ruined Caelum. Now I will do my best to help him.”
“Of course you must,” Faraday said, and Drago glanced at her, trying to interpret her remark.
But her face was in shadow, and he could not read her expression.
As soon as Drago looked away, Faraday spoke again. “If circumstance shows you a path that is distasteful, Drago, but one that will result in a freed Tencendor, will you take it?”
He took a long time to reply. “Stop trying to convince me that —”
“Will you?”
“There is only one person who can persuade me to —”
“Then Caelum will do that,” Faraday said.
Drago’s face closed over. “I can hardly imagine that ever being the case. He rightly loathes me.”
“Will you do whatever you have to in order to aid Caelum and Tencendor?”
“Yes!”
“Then that is enough,” Faraday said. “No-one can ever ask more of you.”
Drago sat on his donkey and wondered if he had just been outwitted. She was as smooth-tongued as WingRidge. He suddenly grinned, dissipating the tension between them. “You retain the sharp skills of a Queen immersed in court intrigue, Faraday.”
She laughed softly. “Naturally. One never knows when they will come in handy.”
“We worry,” said a soldier by the name of Gerlien.
“I know,” Zared answered, rubbing the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. He’d hardly slept the past few nights. “But —”
“Sire? We do not know if our wives and children are safe or wander the plains demented. We must find out.”
To one side, Askam lounged against a tree and watched. Zared had command. So be it. He could deal with this nasty mess, then.
“We must wait for Drago and Faraday to —”
“How much longer must we wait?” Another man stepped forward from the group facing Zared.
“What do you propose?” Zared snapped. “That we just march out into the plains? How long do you think we would last before one of the Demons’ miasma found us? There is no shelter out there, and at least two weeks between us and Carlon!”
“Zared, hush one moment.” Leagh stepped to her husband, and took his arm, although she kept her eyes on the knot of men before them.
“Gerlien, Meanthrin, my husband speaks the truth. Do not blame him that at least he knows where his wife is.”
She smiled to take any sense of chastisement out of her words.
The soldiers relaxed a little, impressed with the fact that Leagh knew their names. But then, she’d been tireless this past week, moving among the campfires of the army each night, spending a few minutes and words at each. And although Zared had done the same, Leagh had always managed to raise a few more, and far more genuine, smiles.
“I ask you to wait,” Zared said. He smiled lopsidedly. “None of us can know where, or how, to move until Drago and Faraday return.”
“And yet,” Askam’s voice cut in from the side, “some people might think you should be out there, saving as much of Tencendor as you can, Zared. After all, is that not what Axis asked you to do?”
“And I will do so,” Zared said, keeping his tone even, “when I know how it is that I may keep most of these men alive.”
“You would put your trust in someone as treacherous as Drago?” Askam asked. “Or as unknown as Faraday?”
“Faraday is hardly ‘unknown’, Askam,” Leagh said, her voice sharp. If her husband necessarily had to guard her tongue in front of Askam, then she did not. “She died for —”
“Ah,” Askam said dismissively, turning away as if to walk into the forest. “And yet here she walks again. Not quite ‘dead’, is she? What did she promise to the Demons to get her life back? The green fields of Tencendor? The jewelled corridors of the Minaret Peaks? And I hardly need start on Drago — that man has never had anything but deadly intentions for Tencendor, or for anyone who steps in his path.”
“No-one can blame you for being scared, Askam,” said a voice to the side, “but you should learn to look beyond past grievances. Don’t fight that which may well save your life.”
“Faraday!” Zared strode forward and helped her from her donkey, relieved beyond measure that she was back. He looked over to Drago. The man was different. Sadder, almost.
“Drago?”
“Soon, Zared, but —”
A lizard scrambled from the donkey’s back and scrambled up the nearest tree. Everyone’s eyes widened in surprise.
“— a meal first would surely be appreciated.”
Sitting about the fire with Zared and his immediate command, Drago told them what he could.
There was little to say but the worst, and no way to say it but in the worst way possible.
Drago studied his hands, and when he looked up his face was neutral. “Qeteb must be allowed to live,” he said.
The listeners erupted with exclamations, and Drago held up his hand for silence.
“There is worse.”
“And why am I not surprised?” Askam muttered under his breath, but none heard.
He shot a glance at Faraday. Askam wasn’t fooled by her. She sat close by Drago’s side, her lovely face demure, her eyes downcast, but Askam wondered if she wasn’t casting some spell to enchant all into Drago’s web.
“Tencendor will be devastated by the Demons,” Drago said softly. “Especially with Qeteb at their head. The land will be destroyed. It must be.”
“Why say this?” Zared cried. “You think this is going to help?”
“Zared … everyone … please listen to what I say before judging either the speaker or the message.”
Drago paused and thought carefully before continuing. The journey through the Silent Woman Woods with Faraday had given him time to think and to reason things out, and what he’d come to understand needed to be said carefully, and yet plainly.
“You all know the tensions of the past, tensions that have been present within Tencendor for over a thousand years. Not even Axis’ battle against Gorgrael managed to truly unite the three peoples of Tencendor. Sin, bias, bigotry, dissent and distrust still walk the land. Tencendor must be ravaged clean to … wait! … let me finish! All the bigotry and distrust must be burned clean before the peoples of Tencendor can find the heart and the courage to truly unite against the Demons.
“The field must be left fallow for it to flower full bright in the season that follows the night.”
Zared dropped his gaze. He could not trust himself to speak.
If Zared thought it best not to immediately vent his anger, then StarDrifter had no hesitation in speaking his mind.
“But to allow Tencendor to become a wasteland.” His face was tight and ashen, his pale blue eyes furious. “Allow Qeteb to arise? How can —”
“I am sorry, StarDrifter. But Qeteb must be allowed to live before he can be killed. Nothing ‘unalive’ can be made dead.”
“And how is this killing to eventuate?” StarDrifter asked, no less angry.
“With the magic of this land combined with the magic of the Enemy’s craft,” Drago replied.
“There is no magic of the land remaining,” StarDrifter said, making an emphatic gesture with his hand. “None.”
“No.” Faraday turned from watching Zared to look at StarDrifter. “You are wrong. This land reeks with enchantment. We must learn how to use it.”
“And the magic of the craft?” Zenith asked. She hated what Drago said, but she also believed they had no option but to trust him.
“We must learn to use that as well,” Drago said. “Faraday is to seek —”
“For the gods’ sakes!” Askam shifted irritably. “No doubt you are going to blind our senses and woo our favour by speaking of some glittering and glorious quest. Bah! You speak of nothing but dreams. Caelum will help us, and he will do right by us. He will not allow this Qeteb to raise from whatever crypt he is stored in. He will not allow —”
“Askam,” Drago said, fixing the man with his eyes. Both his stare and his voice were steady, and very compelling. “You speak nothing but truth when you say that Caelum will help us and do right by us. I am here to serve this land above all else, and I am here to right what wrongs I have done, to both land and Caelum. But Qeteb must be allowed to rise, for there is no other way he can be destroyed. No-one can fight a memory, not even Caelum.”
“Ha!” Askam said, but his tone was unsteady, and his eyes wavered from Drago’s.
Zared studied Drago. There was something troubling the man, some doubt that ate away at his soul. What doubt? Damn him. What was he hiding? Was it worth the destruction of Tencendor?
Leagh laid a hand on his arm, and Zared lowered his head, fighting to contain his anger and frustration.
“Caelum can’t defeat Qeteb without the Sceptre, Drago,” DareWing said. “All who have seen the Maze Gate agree with that. I do not mean to cast doubts on your words, but —”
“DareWing, there is no offence taken.” Drago paused. “I will return the Sceptre to Caelum. I stole it, and I must return it. Faraday and I will go north to do just that.”
Faraday gave him a sharp look, and then turned her face away.
“I have heard enough,” Zared said in a low voice, then raised his head and stared at Drago. “I have heard enough. I am charged with the care of the peoples of this land, and yet you sit there and say, ‘Let them die.’ You are nothing but —”
“You will listen to what I have to say,” Drago shouted, visibly shocking most in the circle.
He stared at Zared, then moved his eyes to each and every one who sat about the fire. “I am a SunSoar. I am the son of Axis SunSoar and of the Enchantress Azhure. I am a Prince of the House of Stars, and of this moment I am claiming my birthright. Among all of us here, I have the highest birthright, I have the best claim to authority, and I know what must be done! In the absence of the StarSon you will, you must, heed my wishes and do as I ask.”
Drago paused, his entire face set hard, then he leaned forward, stabbing with a stiff finger to give his words more emphasis. “Now you will shut up and you will all damn well listen to what I have to say.”
Utter silence. Shock not only at being spoken to in this manner, but because the words and tone came from a man that most had been used to seeing only as a skulking, sullen backdrop to any scene.
It was still hard, StarDrifter thought, to think of Drago as a SunSoar Prince. He glanced about the circle. Faraday was as watchful as he. They locked eyes for an instant, and StarDrifter was the first to shift his away. Zared’s face was unreadable, but StarDrifter thought he knew the man well enough to know that unreadability in itself did not bode ill for Drago. He looked at DareWing. The birdman was tense, and looking at Drago with such ambiguous speculation that StarDrifter thought it could mean either murder or unquestioning loyalty. Askam was clearly hostile. Theod and Herme looked entirely out of their depth; they would follow Zared’s lead.
StarDrifter looked briefly at the birdwoman by his side. Zenith caught his look, and gave a half-smile. She trusted Drago implicitly. Leagh? She was worried, upset by the confrontation between her husband and Drago, and uncertain whom to believe.
“Yes,” Drago said. “Tencendor will be destroyed, but if everyone within this circle works hard, then its peoples will be saved. Deep below us in the waterways is a Sanctuary, a place to which every person and creature that remains untainted can be evacuated. This land is going to be torn apart in the struggle against Qeteb, but its peoples can be saved, and eventually, once Qeteb is dead, the land can be resurrected.”
Again, silence. Then Askam leaned back and laughed. It was a harsh and sarcastic sound.
“I can hardly believe you have the gall to sit here and say that,” he said. “You. You? I haven’t heard anything so ridiculous in —”
He got no further. There was a blur of movement from the trees and suddenly Askam was flat on the ground, the blue-feathered lizard on his chest and hissing in his face.
Drago ignored both Askam and lizard. He looked Zared directly in the eye. “Zared, you are King of Achar. If I tell you how to save your people, will you listen?”
He did not wait for an answer. Instead, Drago swung his fierce stare to StarDrifter. “StarDrifter, you are a Prince of the SunSoar House, and uncle to the Talon. If I tell you of a way to save the Icarii race, will you listen?”
Again, Drago did not wait for an answer. He dropped his eyes for an instant, then raised his face and stared into the gloom of the trees.
“Isfrael! You are Mage-King of the Avar. If I tell you how to save your people from destruction, will you listen?”
Everyone else started, and turned to look in the same direction as Drago.
There was a stillness among the trees … and then Isfrael stepped forth. He looked wilder and more dangerous than any could remember seeing him. His lips were curled in a half-snarl, his arms tense beside him, his hands clenched.
There was blood streaked across his naked torso, and three trails of blood ran down his face.
“No-one tells me how to save the Avar!” he snarled.
Isfrael paused, and then closed the distance between himself and Drago. He leaned down, and thrust a bloodied hand in Drago’s face.
Everyone except Drago automatically leaned back a fraction in shock.
“See Shra’s blood,” Isfrael said, his voice almost a growl. “See what the Demons have done to her.”
Drago stared at the hand, then back to Isfrael’s face. “If I tell you how to save the Avar, will you listen to me?”
“If you live to see the Demons die,” Isfrael said, “then you have my loyalty.
He held Drago’s eyes an instant longer, then turned and stared at Faraday.
She returned his stare, trying to reconcile her memory of a lovable baby and child with this wild man. All she wanted to do was rise and embrace him, but she was kept still by the unexpected — and horrific — antagonism on his face.
“Where were you when Shra died?” Isfrael hissed.
Shra dead? Faraday did not know what to say. Did he blame her? Could she have done something? But she hadn’t known? Was there a way in which she —
“I do thank you for your loyalty,” Drago said, and Isfrael snapped his gaze back to him.
The Mage-King gave a stiff nod and moved away a pace or two.
Faraday dropped her eyes, shocked by the encounter and by Isfrael’s hostility. There was something more than anger at Shra’s death feeding that hostility, but Faraday could not even begin to think what it might be.
“If you can tell me how to save the Icarii from the inevitable destruction ahead, then I am also yours to command,” StarDrifter said quietly. Gods, someone had to say something!
Drago looked at Zared.
“And I,” Zared said, although his willingness to accept Drago’s command clearly had not eased his frustration. “Tell me how to save my people.”
Askam, who had finally managed to push the lizard to one side, leapt to his feet. “Fools!” he cried. He started to say something else, but was so angry that he couldn’t get any more words out. He stared, then stumbled away, the lizard nipping at his heels.
“I’ll speak with him,” Leagh murmured, then rose and hurried after her brother.
“Drago,” Zared said, “where may we find this Sanctuary?”
“It is somewhere in the waterways —” Drago began.
“Forgive me,” Zared said, “but I do not like this ‘somewhere’. Where?”
“WingRidge, as indeed the entire Lake Guard and SpikeFeather TrueSong, are already engaged in the hunt for Sanctuary. Trust, Zared. That is all you can do.”
The Lake Guard are aiding Drago? StarDrifter’s heart began to thump as if it had shifted position into his very mouth. WingRidge and the Lake Guard are working for Drago? Oh merciful Stars above, StarDrifter thought. Oh Stars! Now I understand!
It was as well that no-one addressed StarDrifter at that moment, for he thought himself incapable of speech. He almost moved a hand to his eyes, then realised they were shaking so much it was impossible.
Across the fire from StarDrifter, Zared was fighting his own doubts. He wanted to be able to trust Drago, but he had the responsibility for hundreds of thousands of people. And what had Drago given him? Just vague mention of a Sanctuary that even Drago admitted he couldn’t find. Damn you, Zared thought, staring at Drago. You demand trust of us, and yet you cannot tell us where it is that —
Something jerked within Zared’s body, and he had to fight to keep his face expressionless. For an instant … for an instant he’d been overpowered with the sweet fragrance of a field of lilies, and the bizarre, but utter, conviction that this was what Drago would lead Tencendor into. Both scent and conviction were so compelling they literally took his breath away.
Zared regained his equilibrium within a few heartbeats, and the scent faded. He could have sworn that somehow Drago had cast an enchantment over him, save that Drago was himself looking at Zared with a clearly puzzled expression.
“Zared,” Drago said, watching the man carefully. “I need you to go back to Carlon, taking this army with you. Gather together as many of your people as you can, and ready them for the word I will send when WingRidge finds Sanctuary. Isfrael, will you allow the Acharites in the eastern parts of Tencendor access to the shelter of the forests?”
“As long as they bring their own food with them,” Isfrael said, but Drago nodded. It was enough.
“StarDrifter, I need you and Zenith to go to the Minaret Peaks. Tell FreeFall what I have told you, and wait for word on Sanctuary.”
StarDrifter’s mouth quirked. “The Icarii will not take kindly to news of another exile,” he said. “But we will do as you say. Anything you say, Drago.”
StarDrifter stared at his grandson, his eyes intense, and Drago looked away quickly, not liking the knowledge he saw there. He began to say something else, but Zared forestalled him.
“I do have one small problem,” he said.
Drago raised an eyebrow.
“How do I get myself and my thirty thousand back to Carlon? Isfrael and StarDrifter shall have the forests to protect them, but you seem to calmly assume I can just wander back across the Plains of Tare with my army and all their cursed horses as if we are out for a seventh-day picnic. There is no shelter!“
“Shade will protect you,” Drago said evenly. “All you must ensure is that your army can access shade during the Demonic Hours —”
“There is no shade between these damned Woods and Carlon!”
“Carry it with you.”
“Carry it with me? Carry it with me? Shall I uproot these trees, then, and carry them with me?”
“A cloth against the sun or moon is all you require, Zared. Perhaps stretched over poles. The most basic of tents, enough to shelter you and your horses.”
“A tent? How am I supposed to get enough material —”
“I can give you what you need to move your army,” Isfrael said.
Zared’s eyes widened. “Do you have a thousand bolts of cloth secreted somewhere?”
“You will be surprised by what I and mine have secreted within these trees.”
Zared almost pressed Isfrael, then realised there was no point. “I thank you,” he said, then looked back to Drago.
“I have spoken as I did through anger,” he said. “Anger and frustration. Drago, Prince of the House of the Stars, I will give you everything I can and then more, but only if you can provide my people this Sanctuary. If I watch them shrivel and die because you are wrong, if I watch this land desecrated into nothingness because you are wrong, then know now that I will curse you for all eternity.”
“If I am wrong, then I will deserve to be so cursed,” Drago said, “and I will embrace it for all eternity. But for now, you will do as I say.”
Zared stared at him, remembering again the all-consuming scent of lilies, and he nodded.
As the meeting broke up, Drago moved to speak with StarDrifter and Zenith.
“Zenith,” he said low, “I need to know what happened in your battle with Niah. How exactly did you expel her?”
Zenith exchanged a glance with StarDrifter, then told Drago of how Faraday had found her in the shadowlands. Moving back towards the Island of Mist and Memory, where lay Niah, Zenith had eventually forced the Niah-soul into the baby girl that the shared body carried.
“And then?” Drago asked.
Zenith took a deep breath, her eyes stricken with the memory. “Then I forced the child from my body, and killed her.”
“And then?“ Drago said.
“WolfStar took the corpse,” StarDrifter said, sliding a protective arm about Zenith. “Drago, why push Zenith on this? It is over and done with.”
Drago rubbed his eyes. “No,” he said quietly. “It is only just beginning. WolfStar is in the waterways. He is moving between the craft — with the baby’s corpse.”
“But why?” Zenith said.
“I think he seeks to reconstitute her in the same way that the TimeKeepers look to —”
“No!” Zenith cried.
“And the Demons?” StarDrifter asked. “How is it possible that WolfStar can —”
Drago looked him directly in the eye. “I think the Demons are allowing him to do it. I do not know the ‘why’ of it, but I most certainly do not like it.”
17 The Donkeys’ Tantrum (#ulink_7e4c64ab-3845-5f78-b0cb-71ba0ad73cad)
Leagh walked slowly among the trees, smiling at the groups of soldiers she passed. Sometimes she found it difficult to believe over thirty thousand were sheltered in these Woods. Separated by the trees into small groups, the entire army seemed to merge into the gloom.
She stopped by one lieutenant. “Jaspar, has the Prince Askam passed this way?”
“Through there, my lady.” Jaspar, one of Askam’s command, was not quite sure what to call Leagh. Princess or Queen? What did his allegiance dictate? And who did he owe his allegiance to? Askam … or Zared?
Leagh almost walked off in the direction Jaspar indicated, then paused. “Jaspar, the Prince Drago —” why was it that no-one had thought to accord him his proper title, either? “— has just said something that I think is very pertinent. Tencendor can no longer let petty rivalries and bigotries continue to tear it asunder. If nothing else, Jaspar, give Zared your loyalty because Caelum has asked it of you.”
Jaspar nodded unhappily, and Leagh sighed, and turned away.
She found Askam standing among the horse lines, stroking the neck of his bay stallion.
“Askam?” Leagh walked up and smiled, giving the horse a pat herself. “I think the horses appreciate the gentle rest they find among these trees.”
He didn’t answer her, refusing to even meet her eyes.
“Askam …” Leagh’s voice almost broke, and she had to clear her throat. “Askam, we are tied by blood so close that nothing should come between us. Please —”
He turned to stare at her. “Zared has come between us, sister. You gave him the West when you decided to run away with him and marry him against all wishes. You, only you, denuded me of my heritage.”
Leagh dropped her eyes, burying her fingers in the glossy coat of the horse in an effort to find strength. “I apologise with every beat of my heart for that deception. But Askam …” She raised her eyes, and now they were bright with tears. “Askam, it was what our people wanted, too. Can’t you understand that? Carlon rang with joy when Zared rode in —”
“He must have paid them to —”
“Oh, damn you to everlasting torment in the Bogle Marshes, Askam! No-one can pay for unfeigned joy! It is freely given, not purchased! I struggled for weeks myself, not knowing what to do, thinking that I had betrayed you for love of Zared —”
“You had!”
“— but what he did was not through blind ambition, Askam, but for the people of the Acharite —”
“You are blind, Leagh, to so argue. Gods! The man took you because through you he could gain control of the West. Of Achar. And now? Now he has virtual control of Tencendor while Caelum meditates in Star Finger!”
Askam was shouting now, his hazel eyes furious, his cheeks flushed. “No! What am I saying? That eternal traitor Drago has control of Tencendor. Leagh, I cannot believe what I witnessed there! Everyone from erstwhile Enchanters to the be-twigged Isfrael himself rolled over to let him scratch their bellies. What are they going to do next? Learn to crouch before him and beg for morsels from his plate? What about Caelum for the gods’ sakes? He is the one to whom they owe their ultimate loyalty.”
Leagh tried one last time. “If there is one thing I have learned over the past months, Askam, it is that people will willingly tear out their hearts for a man who will do rather than expect.”
“I expected loyalty,” Askam said flatly, “and I received nothing but treachery. Even from my sister, who I should have been able to trust more than anyone else. But you? You prostituted yourself for a crown.”
Leagh flinched. She tried to think of something to say, then finally turned her back and walked away.
Askam watched her disappear among the trees, then stood by his horse thinking for a long time. Eventually he retraced his steps until he found Jaspar, and the sergeant-at-arms now standing with him.
“My friends,” he said, “I need to have a word with you. It seems we find ourselves among a nest of traitors. If you care for your wife and children, waiting, vulnerable in Carlon, then you will listen well to what I have to say.”
Drago and Faraday did not linger. They told Zared they needed to move north as soon as they could.
“Deal with whatever you find as best you can, Zared,” Drago said.
“And this Sanctuary?”
“I will send word as soon as I can.”
“Do not delay it, Drago.”
“Be prepared, Zared.”
Zared sighed. “Do you need supplies?”
Drago nodded. “I would appreciate it. Who knows what we will be able to scavenge from the plains?”
“Why not stay within the forest for a while?”
“We need to move fast, Zared.”
As do you. The words hung between them, and Zared stared at Drago a moment before moving off.
Drago smoothed his hair with both hands, wishing he had the time and opportunity to bathe and shave. Gods! How many days since he’d been able to shave? He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin, and grimaced. Enchanted forests were all very well, but Drago truly thought he would gladly bargain one of Faraday’s donkeys for an hour in a marbled and steamy bathroom.
As if in direct response to his thought, there was an indignant bray to one side, and Drago turned to look.
Faraday had gone to harness the donkeys to the blue cart — but with obvious lack of success.
Leather harness lay strewn about the clearing, and the cart itself had somehow lost a wheel and was leaning drunkenly to one side. As Drago watched, it creaked, trembled, and then fell apart completely.
Faraday jumped back, tripped over one of the harness collars lying on the ground, and fell over.
Drago walked over and helped her to her feet. “What’s going on?”
“I … I don’t know!” Faraday raised both hands, then let them fall helplessly to her sides again.
The donkeys had retreated several paces, and were now staring at both Drago and Faraday with patent stubbornness.
For his part, Drago studied Faraday. Over the past two weeks since he’d returned through the Star Gate, he’d never seen her anything but calm and sure of herself. Now her cheeks were flushed, her hair in disarray, and her eyes bright — with tears, Drago realised with a start.
“Faraday?” She jumped as a soft hand fell on her shoulder.
Zenith.
As Drago had done, Zenith stared about her, unable to believe what she was seeing. The donkeys adored Faraday. They had comforted her during the time Faraday had planted out Minstrelsea, and Zenith herself had seen their devotion to the woman on their trip from Ysbadd to the Ancient Barrows.
Zenith looked at Drago, registering his own shock.
“The cart just fell apart,” Faraday said. “It just fell apart!”
“Shush,” Drago said, and took one of her hands between his. “Both cart and donkeys doubtless have their reasons.”
Faraday made a helpless gesture with her other hand, and a tear ran down her cheek.
Drago looked impotently at Zenith.
“And the donkeys kicked at me,” Faraday whispered.
Zenith glanced at her brother, then wrapped an arm about Faraday. “Hush, Faraday. Drago is right. They have their reasons.”
“But to kick!”
Drago dropped Faraday’s hand, not knowing what to do. He watched Zenith rock the woman to and fro, crooning to her, and then heard a step behind him and turned, grateful for the interruption.
Zared, his face puzzled, an eyebrow raised. “Do you want horses, Drago?”
Drago started to nod, then stopped himself. “No,” he said, and wondered why he said that. Why refuse horses? “We will walk. It is what the donkeys want us to do.”
The donkeys relaxed, their ears flopping, and each shifted their weight onto one of their hind legs, resting the other.
The feathered lizard suddenly appeared, investigating the wreckage of the cart. It rippled sinuously between the spokes of one of the wheels, and then disappeared under the tray.
“We will walk,” Drago repeated softly, watching the donkeys.
Faraday walked slowly into the grove. It hardly deserved the name, for it was only some three paces across and four or five deep, but it was beautiful nonetheless, with heavy-scented scarlet brambry bushes and clumps of spiked blue and pink rheannies filling the spaces between the trees.
Isfrael was standing in the shadows at the far end of the grove.
“It has been so long,” Faraday said softly. She felt like weeping. Seeing him standing here within the forest made her remember vividly the betrayal in which he’d been conceived — those glorious eight days with Axis when she’d thought to become his wife, while he’d thought of his mistress, Azhure — and the pain and misery of crawling on her hands and knees across half of Tencendor, her belly heavy with her baby, replanting the forests.
The agony of his birth in the Sacred Groves. The far deeper agony of saying goodbye to the infant to fulfil her destiny in dying for the Prophecy.
Azhure and Axis had raised him. Not Faraday.
Faraday had been left to wander the forest paths as a doe, hating her confinement there, and knowing that she slipped from everyone’s minds, including her son’s. It was difficult to reconcile the knowledge that she’d been relegated to legend, with the need to live … live! … and hold her son for just one day in her arms.
Spending brief hours with him in Niah’s Grove when Isfrael had been a child had not been enough, for either of them.
“Mother,” he said, and took a step forward into a shaft of sunlight.
She drew her breath in. In his own strange way he did remind her of Axis, although his wildness was all Avar. His hair was the same faded blonde, the musculature of his chest and arms … his hands. He had Axis’ hands.
Faraday stared at them, remembering how Axis had touched her, and betrayed her with that touch.
“Why did you leave the forests to walk with Drago?” Isfrael asked.
Faraday walked forward a few steps until she was within a pace of her son. “You know why.”
He nodded. “WingRidge told me who he was. But why did you leave the forests?”
Faraday thought about telling Isfrael of how the Sceptre had pulled her to Drago, and thence to the Ancient Barrows.
She thought of telling Isfrael how Drago had saved her with the Rainbow Sceptre, when Axis had refused to use it to save her from Gorgrael. She thought of telling him about Noah, and her promises to him.
But none of this did she say.
“Because I think I can help,” she said eventually, speaking such a colourless truth it was almost a lie. She dropped her eyes to her hands clasped in front of her.
“So you would walk with Drago,” Isfrael said, folding his arms across his chest, “but you would not walk to my cradle when I was an infant and croon me to sleep?”
“Isfrael, I have hardly had a choice in what —”
“I wish,” Isfrael said, and his voice was wistful, almost tender, through its bitterness, “I wish that just once during my childhood you had been there to rock me to sleep. I wish you had cared that much.”
“I have loved you with all my being —”
“No. No, you cared more for those donkeys than you have for me. No wonder Axis preferred Azhure’s love to yours.”
He paused, and his lip curled slightly. “You have no place in my life, Faraday. As you deserted me as an infant, as you deserted Shra to her death, so now I abandon you.”
And he turned and walked into the trees.
Faraday stood and stared at the spot where he had disappeared, absolutely stricken.
It was not my fault, she wanted to cry, but … but was it her fault? Could she have aided Shra? No, no, there was nothing she could have done.
But the other accusation hurt more, because Faraday felt so guilty about it.
Should she have stayed within the Sacred Grove with her son and let Azhure die in her place? If she had, things would not be much different now, would they? Gorgrael would be here to face the TimeKeepers and Qeteb instead of Axis, and Gorgrael would be as powerless as Axis was.
But the most important factor, Drago, would still be here, because Drago had allied himself with Gorgrael and would have survived the Destroyer’s push into Tencendor.
“What did I accomplish by serving out the Prophecy’s wishes,” Faraday whispered into the empty shaft of sunlight. “Not much at all, really, save for the abandonment of my son. No wonder he curses me.”
She stood for a while longer, the tears coursing freely down her face, and then she walked back the way she had come.
Drago was waiting for her, two packs leaning against his legs.
“Did you say goodbye?” he asked.
Faraday bent down and picked up one of the packs, slipping her arms through the straps and settling it on her back.
“I said goodbye to him forty years ago,” she said, “and that was the only goodbye he cares to remember.”
Drago studied her face, almost reaching out to her, then he thought better of it and shouldered his own pack. He picked up his staff, made sure his sack was securely attached to his belt, and whistled for the lizard.
It scrambled out of Askam’s sleeping roll where it had chewed several large holes for the sake of self-amusement, and ran towards them.
“North,” Drago said.
18 Shade (#ulink_8d19a620-e0f5-5d9c-8425-ad3002459bf9)
After Drago and Faraday had left, Zared went in search of Isfrael. The Mage-King had melded with the shadows when the meeting had broken up, but now Zared needed to know how the man could possibly help him acquire enough shade to move an army westwards.
“Shade!” Zared muttered, striding down one of the forest paths. “Shade! What next? Must I carry my own river with me in case we meet up with a band of renegade Skraelings?”
His mouth quirked at the thought. One of Axis’ main foes during his battle with Gorgrael had been the Destroyer’s army of Skraeling wraiths. They had been fearless of everything but water, and Zared was sure that Axis had managed to clog most of the rivers of Tencendor with the Skraelings’ misty bodies at some point or the other.
“Zared.”
Zared turned. Herme was jogging down the path after him.
“Gods,” the older man panted. “I am glad finally to have caught up with you. Where are you going? I need something to occupy me. This inaction is killing me.”
“Something to occupy you, Earl Herme?”
Zared whipped about. Isfrael — in his irritating, fey way — had appeared on the path before him. Behind him were six or seven Avar women.
“You need shade, Zared?” Isfrael waved at the women behind him. “I bring it.”
Numerous possibilities and images jumbled through Zared’s mind at the thought of just how these women might provide shade … and none of them were repeatable.
“Ah …” he said.
Isfrael grinned, stunning Zared even more. He’d never previously seen the Mage-King grin, but even now, there was something slightly malevolent about the expression.
“We need some twenty to thirty of your men,” one of the women said, and Zared’s mind was now so choked with unspeakable thoughts he could only stare at her. She was young and comely, with a clear creamy complexion and dark, wavy hair cascading down her back. She was dressed in a smoky-pink hip-length tunic with a pattern of clam shells embroidered about its hem, and brown leggings and boots.
“Layon,” Isfrael said, “of the ClamBeach Clan.”
Layon? Zared opened his mouth to say something, anything, and then was startled by Leagh’s voice speaking behind him.
“ClamBeach Clan?” she said, and walked to stand close by Zared’s side. “Do you live along the Widowmaker coast?”
Facing both Zared and Leagh, Layon inclined the upper half of her body and placed the heels of her hands on her forehead. “Yes, Queen Leagh.”
“Then you have travelled far to help us,” Leagh said, and smiled, stepping forward to take Layon’s hands. “Will you introduce me to your companions?”
Zared stepped back and managed to re-order his thoughts as Layon introduced Leagh to the other women. He turned to Isfrael, and was silenced by the look of cynical amusement on the Mage-King’s face.
“No doubt,” Isfrael said, “you wonder exactly what these Clan wives need with your men?”
Zared nodded, and then turned slightly to speak with Herme. “Um, Herme, perhaps you can fetch thirty men to aid these women.”
“Make sure they are strong, Earl,” Isfrael said as the Earl turned to go. “Their constitutions will be sorely tested by —”
“Oh for the gods’ sakes, Isfrael,” Zared snapped. “What are you going to do with them? I need shade, not innuendo.”
“‘Twas not me who first thought the innuendo,” Isfrael said softly, and then spoke normally. “The forest is replete in materials that can be woven to form mats. These women can show your men how.”
Zared stared at him, then smiled himself. “Now I have heard of everything, Isfrael. Do you think to give my army weaving classes?”
It was exactly what Isfrael proposed. For the rest of that day, and all through the next, teams of men hunted through the forest for what the Avar women called the goat tree. It was a variety of beech, but with a peculiar stringy bark that the tree continuously shed. Once a tree had been located, men spent an hour or two pulling as much of the fine, fibrous bark from the tree as they could, sweating and grunting as they climbed into the heights to reach the finest bark.
“As long as the men do not pull the under-bark free from the trunk of the tree, it will not be harmed,” Layon explained to a curious Leagh who trailed after the woman from work site to work site.
“What do you normally use the bark for?” she asked.
Layon paused to give a soldier carrying a massive bundle of the bark across his shoulders directions back to the main camp, and then turned back to Leagh. “It is useful for weaving into a rough fibre. We use it, as you shall, to provide summer shelters, although it does not provide much protection against the rain. Once sufficiently prepared and cured, it dries out to become very easy to work and then to carry as a woven cloth.”
“Do we have that long?”
Layon shook her head. “Not unless you want to waste two weeks or more waiting for the fibre to dry out completely. It is workable now, and will dry out further on your trek west. Each man will be able to carry enough on his horse to provide them both with shade, and yet not have it prove too heavy a burden.”
They walked in silence for a while as they moved back towards the campsite. Leagh, as so many “Plains-Dwellers” before her, was overawed by the forest, especially by the sense of light and space and music within it.
“I do not envy you your trek,” Layon eventually said softly. She did not look at Leagh.
“I fear it,” Leagh admitted, equally as softly. “Not only the march west, but what we will find on the plains, and in Carlon itself. I, as Zared and every man with us who has a family and loved ones left behind, worry each moment we are awake about their fate. And at night our dreams …”
Layon looked about her, lifting her eyes to study the forest canopy so far overhead.
“The forest remains a haven,” she said. “But for how long? The Demons grow stronger each day … and even when relatively weak they still managed the murder of Shra.”
Leagh’s eyes filled with tears at the grief in Layon’s voice. “We will prevail —”
Layon turned to her, anger in her face and voice. “We will what? Prevail? And at what expense? This Drago tells us that we must watch Tencendor be turned into a complete wasteland. What does that mean? The destruction of the forest?” Layon waved a hand about her. “That this should burn? I cannot believe that!”
“We must all endure —” Leagh began.
But Layon now let the Avar’s well-tended harvest of bitterness swell to the surface and would not let Leagh finish. “You Acharites know nothing of endurance,” she said. “Nothing.”
After that there was not much to be said. They walked in silence back to the camp, and then separated, Layon to one of the groups of Acharite men under the instruction of an Avar weaver, Leagh back to her husband.
Zared was standing in their personal camp, a bridle hanging from his hands. His face was set in a frown as his fingers struggled with a particularly stiff buckle, and he cursed and dropped the bridle as his fingers slipped one more time.
“You are too impatient,” Leagh said, and bent to retrieve the bridle. “Look, work it gently, so, and … lo! The strap slips through easily.”
Zared grinned wryly, and then noticed Leagh’s face. “What’s wrong?”
She hesitated, then threw the bridle down on top of a pile of tack and stepped into the protective circle of his arms. “I am afraid.”
“So am I,” he said. “Leagh?”
“Yes?”
“I want you to stay within the forest. Who knows what we will encounter —”
“No.”
“Leagh —”
“No!” She raised her face to his. “Twice no, Zared. First a no because I refuse to let my husband ride off without me — and you know what will happen if you do that.”
Zared grimaced, remembering how he’d left Leagh in charge of Carlon, only to have her ride off to Caelum’s camp.
“And a no because, as you taught me, I have a duty to my people. I am not only Leagh. I am Queen Leagh, and I, as you, have a people to put before my personal desires and wants.”
Zared grinned down into her face, unable to be cross with her. “I shall remind you of that next time you start to whisper your personal desires and wants into my ear late at night.”
She returned his smile, then leaned in close against him, resting her cheek against his chest.
“But, for my sake,” he whispered into her hair, “keep safe. Keep safe.”
“And you,” she said. “And you.”
They stood and held each other, both silent.
Once the fibrous bark of the goat tree had been stripped, separated and then combed — a process that took the best part of a week — then every man was given the task of weaving his own shelter.
Some took to the work better than others. Many among the army were sons of craftsmen, or were craftsmen themselves, and they quickly sat down to the job, whistling as the fine fibres spun through their fingers.
Others needed persuasion … and much instruction. The Avar women, now numbering almost fifty, moved among the army, bending over shoulders, laughing and scolding, and correcting fumbling fingers. Zared, Herme and Theod sat in a circle, with Leagh hovering on the outer amused that the highest nobility of Achar could use man-welded weapons to destroy with ease, and yet could not use the fingers they’d been born with to create.
“I wish I had a court painter with me now!” she said, amongst her laughter, “so he could record this scene for posterity.”
All three men looked up from the knotted and uneven weave in their laps and scowled at her, but their eyes danced with merriment also.
“One day,” Zared said, “I am going to see how well you wield a sword.”
“Oh, my dear,” she said, and winked at him. “Not half as well as you do, I am sure.”
All three men laughed, and Zared shook his head slightly as he looked back to where he’d managed to knot his left thumb between four strands of fibre.
Still others, although few in number, bent to the task of weaving their shade with deep resentment. Of them all, Askam harboured the deepest bitterness. Even if every man within the camp, commanders and nobles among them, were, like he, bent to the task of weaving, it did not help Askam’s sense of self-worth. He’d effectively lost all he had ever commanded, and the man who had stolen it from him, now had him sitting cross-legged in a forest assisting to weave a damned shade-cloth!
“Wait,” he murmured so that none about him could hear.
“Wait.”
19 The SunSoar Curse (#ulink_8a18cc30-e016-5c46-99b1-b4af06d7b29a)
D uring the mid-afternoon of their third day out of the Silent Woman Woods, Zenith and StarDrifter stopped to exchange news for malfari bread and honeyed malayam fruit with a band of Avar, then flew until the dusk penetrated the forest canpoy and flight was no longer enjoyable, let alone safe.
“How far do you think we have come?” Zenith asked StarDrifter as they cleared a space beneath a whalebone tree and sat down.
He glanced about him, wincing as a twig stabbed into his back, and readjusting his position slightly to accommodate it. Then he pointed to a shrub huddling close to the small stream that ran eastwards.
“See that kianet shrub? They only grow near the Bogle Marsh. So we have not done badly for three days’ journey.”
Zenith nodded, and handed StarDrifter his share of the honeyed malayam on a thick slice of malfari. A fair distance indeed, but if they’d been able to fly direct to the Minaret Peaks they would only have another day’s travel, if that. Forced to keep to the sheltering forests, they were swinging in a great arc to the east. Tomorrow, perhaps, they could swing back west.
“I have a hankering to spend tomorrow night in Arcen,” StarDrifter said as he broke away some of the fruit and ate it.
Zenith glanced at him sharply. “Why? We can overfly it and continue straight on. There’s no point —”
“Zenith, what difference will a half-day make?” StarDrifter said around his mouthful. “That’s all we’d lose, and I confess myself tired of these beds of pine needles and sharp-elbowed twigs.”
Zenith grinned and tore herself off a slice of malfari. Aha! StarDrifter was missing his comforts! It seemed an age since they’d been on the Island of Mist and Memory. StarDrifter had gone with Axis to the Ancient Barrows to try and strengthen the Star Gate — a useless exercise, as it turned out — and Zenith had travelled north with Faraday in the blue cart drawn by the donkeys.
“It has been a rare long time since I’ve had you to myself,” StarDrifter said, and Zenith smiled softly again, and replied without looking at him.
“Have you recovered your Enchanter powers then, StarDrifter, to read my mind so?”
StarDrifter did not reply immediately. He stared down at his fruit and bread, turning a crust over and over in one hand.
“And I find,” he said, very hesitatingly, but encouraged by her response, “that I do so very much enjoy this time spent alone with you.”
He looked up. Now Zenith was staring at the food in her hands. Again StarDrifter hesitated, but he was not a man for leaving unsaid that which needed to be shared.
“I also find,” he finally said, “that I resent every moment that I must share you with someone else. Dear gods, Zenith, I adore Faraday, but she trailed so happily — and so damnably consistently! — about after us on the Isle of Mist and Memory that I could have thrown her over the cliff face!”
StarDrifter stopped, wondering if he had said too much. But, curse it, it needed to be said! And so, having come this far, StarDrifter leapt over the cliff himself.
“It is the SunSoar curse that our blood calls out so boldly for each other,” he said. “But I find it no burden, and no curse, to love you as I do.”
There, it was said.
“StarDrifter —”
“Let me say one more thing,” he said, in gentler tones. “I know WolfStar hurt you, and that the introduction to love you suffered at his hands has likely scarred you for life. But —”
“Now is not the time to be talking of this,” Zenith said. Her voice was very brittle.
StarDrifter raised an eyebrow. “Now, in this gentle companionship under the trees, is not the time to be speaking of ‘this’?”
She looked at him steadily. “The TimeKeeper Demons are tearing this land apart. Surely there are more important things we should be —”
“Don’t evade me, Zenith.”
Zenith’s eyes filled with sudden tears, and she jerked her gaze away from StarDrifter’s face.
“Zenith …” StarDrifter reached over, took the now damp and useless food from Zenith’s hands, put it to one side, and clasped her hands very gently in his own. “Please, talk to me.”
She took a deep breath. StarDrifter had been courageous enough to speak of the bond that both knew had been developing between them, and she knew she should be as well. “RiverStar … RiverStar always chided me for not taking a lover. She said it was not the SunSoar way.”
StarDrifter grinned mischievously, his eyes twinkling with undemanding humour. “She was right.”
Zenith allowed herself to be reassured by his grin, and half-smiled herself. “I always told her I wanted to wait for the right man, she always said it was mother’s Acharite primness showing through.”
Maybe RiverStar was right, StarDrifter thought. And maybe it was just that Azhure, like Zenith, had preferred to wait until she found the man she loved.
“I wish,” Zenith’s smile faded, “I wish that I had succumbed to the blandishments of some Icarii Strike Leader, or Enchanter, during those wild Beltide nights that I spent watching from beneath the safety of the trees. I wish that I had, because then I would not have been left with WolfStar as my only memory of love!”
“Shush,” StarDrifter said, disturbed by the emotion in Zenith’s voice.
Zenith took another deep breath, calming herself. “But … but I waited, because I felt that somewhere was the one man that I could love more than any other.”
StarDrifter’s heart was racing. Why would she have said that, unless … unless … “And have you found him yet?”
Zenith stared at StarDrifter, wishing he had not forced this conversation, and yet relieved beyond words that he had. Had she found the man she could love beyond any other? Yes, she had, and she’d known it for a very, very long time. Why else had she been so frantic to know if he’d survived the Demons’ push through the Star Gate?
“Yes,” she whispered.
Strange, StarDrifter thought, strange that I do not feel overwhelming triumph at this moment. Ever before when a woman has looked into my eyes and whispered “yes,” all I have felt was triumph. Now? Relief. Sheer relief.
He leaned forward to kiss her.
Zenith jerked her head away, her eyes round and fearful, and StarDrifter pulled back as if he’d been burned.
“Why let WolfStar ruin your life? Love does not have to be what he showed you. Zenith, do you want WolfStar to colour your perception of love for the rest of your life?”
“No,” she whispered, and StarDrifter nodded slightly.
“Good.” He leaned forward, very, very slowly, giving her every chance to move away if she wanted, and then, having hesitated as long as he was capable, he kissed her.
Zenith tensed as his lips touched hers, but he was so gentle, and so tender, that she forced herself to relax and to accept his kiss. Feeling her muscles lose their rigidity, StarDrifter drew back slightly, his eyes searching Zenith’s face, then he drew her close and kissed her again, this time with more passion, and more insistence.
The kiss of a lover.
Zenith’s initial reaction was absolute immobility. She’d admitted that she loved him, but Zenith still found this sudden metamorphosis of grandfather into lover a profoundly unsettling experience. She was shocked by the warmth and taste of his mouth, a potent mixture of sweetness and maleness, and she was shocked by his insistence.
It reminded her far too much of —
“No!” she said, and pushed him away.
StarDrifter stared at her, remembering himself. Remembering the feel of Azhure in his arms, and the delight of her mouth, when he’d kissed her in the training chamber of Star Finger so many years ago.
She’d pushed him away, too, and he’d acquiesced.
And lost her to Axis.
What would have happened then if he’d insisted?
StarDrifter’s face closed over and he turned away from Zenith. Rape. That’s what would have happened. And whatever else StarDrifter was, and might be capable of, he could not now insist with Zenith. He could not be a WolfStar.
“I’m sorry!” Zenith was crying, feeling the burden of guilt and uselessness. What kind of woman was she? She owed StarDrifter more than this. “I’m sorry! It was just that … just that …”
“Hush,” StarDrifter said, and gathered her into his arms as he would have gathered a child. “Hush. We have time, and I think we have love between us, and I think that we will eventually manage.”
Zenith clung to him, grateful that the lover had transformed (for the moment) back into the protective grandfather. Did she love him? Yes, she did, but nevertheless …
“Just give me time,” she whispered, leaning her head against his chest and letting herself be comforted by the beating of his heart. “I just need time.”
Above her head StarDrifter’s mouth twisted wryly. He was heartily sick of being the understanding grandfather.
20 Sicarius (#ulink_008168a8-46c4-55f7-a1f5-a215831ef780)
Axis sat his horse — a fine roan stallion — and wished he had wings with which to fly. Perhaps he should have taken up StarDrifter’s long ago offer to coax his latent wing buds into growth. Too late now.
He tried not to think of the enchantments he had once commanded that could have seen him travel the breadth of Tencendor in an instant.
Over the past week they had pushed both horses and men hard, northwards through the Minstrelsea forest, skirting Arcen, and then straight through the tree-sheltered passes of the Minaret Peaks in the dead of night. Both Axis and Azhure would have liked to stop to talk with FreeFall, but time was more important for the moment, and they could always send him a message from Star Finger if they needed.
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