Enchanter

by Sara Douglass

  Faraday inclined her head graciously, feeling happier than she had for many months.

  Borneheld’s temper erupted the moment their apartment doors closed behind them. “He is mad! Crazed!” he hissed, his face flushed and perspiring.

  “He thinks only of saving his people, husband,” Faraday said, moving to sit at a small table by the window.

  “Curse you, Faraday!” Borneheld took a threatening step towards her. “No doubt you revelled in my humiliation!”

  Faraday raised her eyes, not in the least intimidated. “I, like Priam, care only for this land, Borneheld. Not for titles, nor for wealth, nor for the power you crave.”

  Borneheld flung himself away before he gave into his growing desire to hit her as she deserved. “Does not the chance to sit by my side as Queen tempt you, my sweet?”

  Faraday’s gaze was direct and truthful. “Neither the title nor the place by your side tempt me, husband.” There, the words were said.

  “Nevertheless, you sanctimonious bitch, you are tied to both, no matter what Priam says and no matter how much you lust after my brother! I—”

  He was cut off by a knock at the door. It opened before either Borneheld or Faraday could say anything.

  Gilbert stepped through the door. He smirked at the obvious tension in the room, then half bowed to Borneheld. “My Lord, the Brother-Leader requests an audience.”

  “An audience, Gilbert?”

  “He, ah, thinks it best if we further discussed those possibilities I raised in Jervois Landing, Lord.”

  Borneheld took a sharp breath. “Of course, Brother Gilbert,” he said smoothly. “My dear, if you will excuse us.”

  Faraday frowned at the door as it closed behind him. Why had Borneheld’s mood changed so abruptly?

  No matter. She stood and looked out the window, gazing sightlessly at the crowds in the streets below. Priam had done what she never thought he would—publicly allied himself with Axis, and publicly considered him as heir to the throne.

  Faraday’s eyes filled with tears, but they were tears of hope, not despair.

  18

  THROUGH THE FORTRESS RANGES

  For two days Ogden and Veremund led Rivkah and Azhure south-west through the Avarinheim. The paths were narrow and overgrown in this part of the forest—the Avar tended to stay away from the range of mountains dividing their homelands from Achar. “They prefer to have a healthy buffer of forest between them and the Acharites,” Veremund explained to Azhure.

  But even overgrown as they were, the trails were beautiful. The lofty forest canopy sheltered them from the northern winds and let in a delicate soft golden light. As they walked the forest spoke to them in endless music—the secretive sounds of the wind as it moved through the trees and bushes, the soft drip of moisture from leaves, the cascades of streams as they rushed towards the Nordra River and the ever changing song of the forest birds. And weaving its way through both light and music came the wondrous sound of the Earth Tree Song, binding all under her mystery.

  Veremund and Ogden enjoyed the two women’s company. They were serene and restful companions, and walking with them through the Avarinheim over the past two days had proved a gentle joy. It had been some two thousand years since either Sentinel had walked the forest paths, and then the Avarinheim had stretched over most of the lands east of the Nordra River. Now, only the forest protected by the Fortress Ranges remained inviolate—from either Seneschal or Gorgrael.

  “Veremund?” Rivkah caught up to Veremund and Azhure. “Ogden has a problem with his donkey. Her off fore foot has a small stone in it and Ogden wants you to hold her head while he removes it.”

  Veremund nodded his thanks and turned back.

  Rivkah took Azhure’s arm as the two women drew away from the Sentinels. About them the filtered light was alive with butterflies and birdsong.

  “Azhure,” Rivkah said. “I am glad we finally have a chance to speak.” She could feel Azhure tense a little under her hand. “I am not speaking of wrong or right, Azhure, only of what you feel. After all,” she smiled wryly, “I am the last to apportion blame to women who find themselves the target of an Enchanter’s attentions.”

  “I did not intend to do it,” Azhure said, her tone slightly defiant. “I do not mean to get in the way.”

  Rivkah let her arm go and gave Azhure a brief hug. “Azhure, it is very hard to love an Enchanter. That is all I want to say. If ever you need to talk, then I will be here.”

  “I know, Rivkah.” Azhure paused. “Axis loves Faraday. I know that, and I can accept it. But…”

  “But…?” Rivkah thought she knew what Azhure would ask.

  “But, noble or not, Faraday is a woman like me. Wouldn’t she and Axis have the same problems as you and StarDrifter did? As Axis and I would? Wouldn’t she age and die well before he?”

  “Azhure.” Rivkah’s tone was very gentle. “From what we have heard of Faraday and the Mother, she is no longer quite as human as either you or I. Perhaps she will live as long as Axis. Perhaps she will be able to hold him, to satisfy him where a human woman could not.”

  “It was one night. Do not fear for me. I can walk away.”

  “I hope you can, Azhure,” Rivkah said. “Axis has his father’s blood coursing through his veins. He is a powerful Icarii Enchanter. He will be back one day—can you walk far enough before then?”

  Behind them Ogden and Veremund bent over the patient donkey’s foot, finally letting the unblemished hoof drop to the ground.

  “He spent Beltide night with her,” Ogden said quietly.

  “He has spent nights with many women,” Veremund replied.

  “This was different. She is different.”

  “Yes,” Veremund finally, grudgingly, said. “Yes, she is. What does this mean for the Prophecy?”

  Ogden sighed and gazed up the forest path where the women walked. “Who knows, dear one? Who knows? There is so much we don’t know. So much the Prophet left unsaid.”

  “She is a complication.”

  “Yes,” Ogden agreed.

  “But I like her, Ogden. I like her.”

  “Yes,” Ogden agreed again. He knew what Veremund meant. Neither could help liking Azhure because both felt intuitively that she was already an old friend. But how?

  “She has a power about her, dear one,” Veremund said. “But it is covered with a thick blanket of fear.”

  Ogden looked at his brother sharply. “You are very perceptive, Veremund. I had not noticed that, but now that you mention it…Yes, you are right. Is she a danger?”

  “A danger? I had not thought of her that way. A danger? Perhaps, but I do not know who to.”

  “What do we do?” Veremund said eventually. “I do not know what to do about her.”

  Ogden clucked to his donkey. “What do we do? We do nothing, dear one, but watch. Wait. Serve, in whatever manner presents itself.”

  “She has the qualities of a hero, dear one,” Veremund murmured. “One day she will overcome that blanket of fear and step forward to demand her birthright.”

  Both remained silent and introspective until they had caught up with Rivkah and Azhure. Then, smiling mischievously, Ogden started to tell the two women of a tale he had once heard of two shepherds, a goat and a saucepan.

  The next morning they came to the foot of the Fortress Ranges.

  “Well?” Rivkah demanded. “Where is this secret way of yours, Ogden? Veremund?”

  “A little way from here. But it will take most of the morning to climb down into the tunnel.”

  “Tunnel?” Azhure echoed doubtfully, but the two Sentinels had already started down a barely marked trail.

  The Sentinels led the two women into a crevice at the base of the nearest of the hills. For two or three hours they scrambled down, descending deeper and deeper into the gloom. After some time the soft light of the Avarinheim forest disappeared altogether, and Ogden produced a small oil lamp from his donkey’s pack.

  “We shall not need it for lon
g,” he remarked, and both women glanced at each other in concern. Neither liked the idea of climbing any further into this crevice. Where were the Sentinels leading them? If the way grew any steeper then they would not be able to take the donkeys any further.

  “The worst is behind us, my sweet ladies,” called Ogden. “We are almost there.”

  “I am not so sure that I wish to know where ‘there’ is,” Azhure grumbled. Her limbs were stiff and sore and she had pulled a muscle in her left leg.

  The next moment she breathed in relief as the slope eased.

  “Where are we?” Rivkah asked breathlessly as they stepped onto a smooth gravel path. Ogden’s lamp showed very little apart from the nearest rocks in what appeared to be a narrow crevice. Even though they knew it was only midday, it appeared darkest night. “Where will this lead us?”

  “Into a mystery, dear lady,” Ogden said.

  Veremund stepped back and placed a reassuring hand on each woman’s shoulder. “It is quite safe, and will be clean and dry and light soon. Bear with Ogden. He does like a mystery.”

  Ogden led the party behind a jumble of rocks. Before them, beyond the comforting glow of the lamp, stretched total darkness. Then stunningly, Ogden doused his lamp and complete darkness enveloped the group.

  “Watch, dear ones!” he cried. “Watch!” and the two women sensed him moving forward.

  There was a soft click, and suddenly a soft yellow light glowed at ankle level. Both Rivkah and Azhure gasped. Ogden was stepping forth onto a smooth, black metallic roadway. With every fourth or fifth step he took another light clicked softly on. Some at ankle level, some over his head. As Ogden skipped ahead in delight, a long straight tunnel was revealed, stretching forward until it was lost in the darkness. Yellow lines ran down the centre of the tunnel roadway.

  Ogden’s donkey patiently followed her master.

  “What is it?” Rivkah asked Veremund, her arms wrapped about herself protectively.

  “Who built it?” Azhure demanded. “When? How do the lights work? What is this tunnel doing here? What is this black shiny stuff that coats the surface of the floor?”

  “All Ogden and I know,” Veremund replied, “is that this tunnel exists, and others like it in various parts of Tencendor—we use them from time to time. They are old, very old, and we do not know who built them. Come.” He stepped after the fast disappearing Ogden, and, after only a moment’s hesitation, the women followed.

  Behind them, precisely ten minutes after they had passed, the lights clicked off one by one.

  The tunnel ran deep into the earth. For the rest of the day they descended a gentle gradient before the roadway finally levelled out. There Ogden announced they would rest briefly before continuing.

  “We have no comfortable mats and no Enchanter to create magical mattresses of air for us,” explained Ogden to the tired women, who protested they needed longer to rest. “Within only a few hours you will become so uncomfortable on this hard surface that you will be only too pleased to move again.”

  “Besides,” Veremund added. “I admit that I yearn for the night sky and the fresh air again. Safe and convenient this tunnel may be, but it is monotonous and sterile and it gives my soul no joy.”

  “Where does this tunnel go?” Azhure asked, slipping the Wolven off her shoulders and putting it carefully down. “How long will it take us to walk through?”

  “It travels completely underneath the Fortress Ranges,” Ogden said, rummaging around in one of his donkey’s packs. He pulled out a platter of raisin cookies with a flourish. “How long to walk through? Well, if we manage to keep moving with only brief rests, we should emerge into daylight in two days’ time.”

  “Well,” Rivkah said, helping Veremund ease the packs from the donkeys’ backs, “I suppose I can put up with it if it gets us to Sigholt quicker.”

  Azhure sat down and accepted a cookie from Ogden. She could tolerate the stifling atmosphere of the tunnel if it kept her from having to travel close to Smyrton.

  Veremund sat down cross-legged and looked hopefully at his brother. “Ogden, did you happen to find any apples in your pack?”

  The Sentinels were right. After only two or three hours both women were tossing and turning, their hips, elbows and shoulders sore and cold from the hard, metalled surface beneath them. They rose gratefully when Ogden called them. Even walking half asleep would be better than another minute spent prone on this floor.

  Over the next two days and nights they walked five or six hours until feet started to shuffle and tempers snap, then they’d rest three, perhaps four, hours until no-one could stand the cold hard roadway any longer. Nothing about the tunnel changed. It was an eerie feeling, trapped in a small bubble of light in what seemed to be an eternity of darkness. All hungered for open spaces and fresh air so badly they could physically taste their need.

  On the morning of the third day the roadway rose gently, and everyone’s spirits lifted with it. Even the tired donkeys pricked their ears and brayed as they leaned into the rise.

  They emerged, every muscle in their bodies sore and weary after an eight-hour climb into a dark and cold afternoon. They scrambled over rocks and down a steep and treacherous ravine before they stepped onto flat ground, all shivering in the biting wind that blew down from the north. At Talon Spike and in the Avarinheim they had been largely protected from Gorgrael’s malicious weather, but here, at the edge of the Fortress Ranges and the WildDog Plains, the northerly wind screamed down on the little group as they huddled among a tumble of boulders.

  Rivkah looked at the bleak landscape ahead. “Should we rest the night here, Ogden, before we attempt to move south? These boulders might give us the only degree of shelter we’re going to get for a long time.”

  Ogden shook his head. “No, lovely lady. We will move south some hours before camping for the night. We need to move as soon as we can.” He paused. “I do not like the bite in this wind and I fear that it will sap our energies if we stay in one place too long. Best we keep moving. But, look, see what I have here.”

  Ogden pulled two cloaks from his donkey’s packs and handed them to the women, who wasted no time wrapping themselves as close as they could. Veremund had similarly unpacked two cloaks from his donkey’s packs and the two Sentinels rugged up as well. Then, to the surprise of both Azhure and Rivkah, the Sentinels insisted that they each ride a donkey.

  Comfortable and relatively warm atop the donkeys, neither woman complained any further.

  The wind had died a little by the time they made camp for the night in the inadequate shelter afforded by a small, dry creek bed. The remains of a few dead skeleton bushes made a tiny, cheerless fire. Ogden produced some hot soup and crusty bread from one of the packs and, after they had eaten, Veremund persuaded the donkeys to lie down close to the fire. Between the donkeys and the fire, the four spent a passable night, the dry creek bed feeling like the finest feather bed to muscles still aching from the tunnel floor.

  Thus they travelled for three days, slowly wending their way southwards against whatever protection the sharp cliffs of the Fortress Ranges could give them. To the women, spring seemed to have hardly touched this land yet, but to the Sentinels who had survived the siege of Gorkenfort and who knew to what extremes Gorgrael could drive winter, the lack of snow gave them some hope that spring had broken through more strongly in the lands south of the Nordra. Nevertheless, the frigid wind at their backs reminded them all that Gorgrael sat to the north, rallying his forces, waiting to build his army of Ghostmen to invasion force again.

  Wrapped in lonely silence atop her donkey, Rivkah wondered what her son could do to counter Gorgrael’s powerful enchantments. What could he do against a half-brother who could manipulate the very weather itself?

  19

  THE ALAUNT

  On the third day after the group left the Fortress Ranges tunnel, fluid white shapes started to nose about the rocks where the women and the Sentinels had briefly sheltered.

  Suddenly one
halted, and buried his nose in the remains of a scuff mark. An instant later his head lifted into the sky and an eerie howl washed over the rest of his pack. Soon all were baying, low and clear, as the pack shuffled around the remaining traces of scent. Then they moved as one past the boulders and took the faint trail south. Occasionally one or two of them lifted their snouts long enough to send another low bay winding plaintively across the empty plain before them.

  The small, yellow native wild dogs after whom the plains were named, and who lived out their lives hunting mice and small birds, huddled deep into their burrows, terrified beyond reason.

  They knew the Alaunt ran.

  It was late in the afternoon of the fourth day when the Sentinels heard the sound of the pack baying to the north. Neither woman saw the look of deep alarm that passed between Ogden and Veremund as they urged the donkeys on a little bit faster.

  Both Sentinels knew they had no hope of outrunning the Alaunt. Yet if they could delay the inevitable confrontation an hour or more they might find a more defensible position.

  Azhure was the first to become aware of the tension between the two Sentinels. “What is it?” she asked, raising her voice against the wind. “Why are you worried?”

  Ogden glanced at Veremund, and the two came to a swift decision. Azhure and Rivkah would hear the hounds soon enough, anyway. They were closing rapidly.

  “We are being followed,” Veremund said, his voice strained.

  “Followed? Who by?” Azhure reached automatically for the Wolven. “Skraelings?”

  Veremund shook his head. “No. Creatures far older, far deadlier.”

  “What?” Azhure hissed. Her blood ran hot with desire for action and her hand gripped an arrow. The Wolven quivered in her hand. “What?”

  “Alaunt hounds,” Ogden said shortly, casting his eyes about the terrain before them.