Orr’s eyes brightened, and he leaned forward. “Look behind you, Axis SunSoar. We approach the Gate.”
Axis swivelled on his seat. They were rapidly approaching what appeared to be a large island, slightly raised towards its centre. On the top of the rise was a large rectangle of pure light, slightly wider than a normal door and twice as tall.
The next moment the boat rasped across the gravel of the shore and came to a complete halt. Beside them the woman and baby continued to glide towards the rectangle of pure light. “You must go on alone, Axis. By the Gate you will find the GateKeeper. Ask of her what you wish, but do not ask what lies through the Gate. If you do—alive or not—you will be forced through.”
“Thank you, Orr. Will you wait here for me?”
“If you come back,” Orr said comfortingly, “I will be here for you.”
The surface of the island was covered with loose grey gravel, and Axis had to fight to keep from losing his footing. The air was thick and heavy about him, but all he could see was the rectangle of light atop the hill, throbbing with a hypnotic power. Ahead of him the woman and baby reached the rectangle, paused briefly, then stepped through. The light pulsed for an instant, then was calm again—but still it seemed to call, hungry for more.
As he neared the crest of the hill Axis saw that a thin, dark figure sat at a table to one side of the Gate. As he drew closer the figure lifted its head from its contemplation of two shallow bowls, a faint glow emanating from each, and spoke.
“I hear footsteps.”
Axis crunched to within five paces of the table and stopped. In the reflected light from the Gate he saw it was a woman who sat there, gaunt, with pale luminous skin, great black eyes sunk into her skull, and black hair left free to flow down her back. White hands rested on the table before her.
She reminded Axis of Veremund.
“I…” Axis’ voice faltered and he had to clear his throat. It was very hard to speak in this place and before this woman. She did not look very pleased to see him. “I seek the GateKeeper,” he finally managed, relieved that his voice emerged calm and steady despite his inner turmoil.
She considered him with her great unblinking eyes. Another soul drifted up to the Gate, paused as it looked at the woman, then passed through. As the Gate pulsed the woman lifted a small metallic ball from one of the bowls and dropped it into the other bowl. It made a soft clink as it fell.
“I am the GateKeeper,” the woman replied, her voice toneless. “I keep tally. Have you come to be counted? Why? You are yet alive.” She smiled, and Axis wished she hadn’t. Her smile had the appeal of a four-day dead corpse and the malevolence of a nightmare.
“I have come with a request.”
Another soul drifted into the Gate and the GateKeeper dropped another metal ball from one bowl to the other. She looked up at him again. “Yes? A request? How unusual. Rarely am I asked for requests.”
Before Axis could answer, a stream of souls approached. The GateKeeper slowly and deliberately transferred the balls from one bowl to the other as each soul passed through the Gate. The continual and deliberate clicking of the balls as they dropped into the second bowl began to irritate Axis intensely. He tried to stop himself from shuffling.
Finally the stream of souls subsided and the GateKeeper looked up again. “A tavern fire,” she explained listlessly. “Thirty-four dead.”
“Do all who approach pass through?” Axis asked, wondering what she would do if one of the souls refused to pass through.
The GateKeeper pursed her lips. “No,” she finally said, and waved at a small pile of some fifty dull black balls that lay on the extreme right side of the table. “These refuse to go through.”
Axis glanced at them, about to ask if FreeFall was among them, then he noticed that there were two other, smaller, piles of balls on the table. One pile of seven balls, sparkling like the stars, lay at the front centre, while a larger pile of some thirty or forty softly glowing golden balls, lay to the extreme left of the table. He pointed at the two extra piles. “And those?”
“Those?” The GateKeeper raised her eyebrows, and in that moment Axis realised she was the most impossibly beautiful woman he had ever seen. “You see those?”
“Yes,” Axis replied. “Both piles glow, perhaps with the reflected light of the Gate. Are these souls who also refuse to go through?”
“No. These,” she pointed at the pile of seven sparkling balls, “are the Greater, and they have no need of me or my Gate.” She pursed her lips. “They are incomplete. They await Song and Moon.”
Axis frowned, then his face relaxed as he remembered Orr’s words. “The Star Gods.”
“Yes. You are good. And these…” The GateKeeper pointed at the larger pile of golden balls, then waved at the Ferryman waiting in his boat far below them. “These,” she said with a hint of amusement in her voice, “are the Lesser. They also do not have to go through my Gate.”
Axis frowned. The Lesser? What did she mean? He opened his mouth to ask, but the GateKeeper forestalled him.
“Why are you here?” she asked, calm and inscrutable again. All appearance of beauty had vanished.
“I have come to bring FreeFall SunSoar back from the dead,” Axis said, realising how ridiculous it sounded. “He said he would wait at the Gate. Perhaps,” he indicated the small pile of balls that represented those who would not go through, “he waits among those.”
“How amusing that you should think you could bring someone back. No-one ever comes back from the dead.”
“WolfStar has!”
The woman took a harsh intake of breath, but retained her composure almost instantly.
“WolfStar left through a different Gate,” she said, reverting to her expressionless tone. “And thus he would have come back through a different Gate. No-one comes back through this Gate. This is my Gate.”
Axis glanced at the Gate, curious about what lay on the other side of Death—the greatest mystery of all, and the opportunity to solve it lay only paces away. If WolfStar could come back through the Star Gate then perhaps he could somehow come back through this Gate if he walked through.
“If you wish, you can walk through, Axis SunSoar,” the woman said, and Axis noticed a ball in her hand. “But you will never come back. Never.” Her hand hovered over the second bowl.
“No.” Axis swung her hand away from the bowl. To his surprise her flesh was warm and soft. Was that his life she held in his hand? “I do not wish to go through.”
“Well,” the GateKeeper smiled and replaced the ball in the first bowl, “as you will. Now, tell me. Why do you think you can return this soul to life?”
Axis told her the story of FreeFall’s murder, of the promise the birdman had extracted from Axis as he lay dying. “FreeFall must wait among those souls who refuse to go through. Release him to me.”
“Ah,” the GateKeeper sighed melodramatically, her face softening into beauty once again, “it is a touching story you tell.” Her face hardened. “But no. No. No. No. No-one goes back once they are dead. Now, go away and leave me. FreeFall SunSoar will not return to the land of the living.”
“Damn you!” Axis gave in to his anger and disappointment. “Don’t you understand anything? FreeFall died well before his time. Murdered. I promised! He believed me and now he waits for me! I cannot go back on my promise!”
Far below the Ferryman stirred restlessly.
“No,” the GateKeeper said again.
Axis tried one last time. “I was unable to save him from Borneheld, GateKeeper, please give me the chance to save him now!”
The GateKeeper’s lips formed the word “No”, then stopped at the last moment as the name Axis had mentioned sank in. “Borneheld? Is this Borneheld the one who is also Duke of Ichtar?” she inquired placidly, but Axis could see that her fingers trembled on the table.
“Yes, he is the Duke of Ichtar.”
“Ah,” the GateKeeper breathed. “I do not like the Dukes of Ichtar.”
&nb
sp; Now her agitation was evident. She sat silently, deep in the memory of some wrong the Dukes of Ichtar had done her, her fingers shuffling up and down the table like wary spiders. Finally she spoke again, but now her voice quivered with repressed excitement.
“You have it in your power to right an injustice,” she said.
“As do you. Release FreeFall.”
“And you will help me to right the injustice done to me and mine?” the GateKeeper asked.
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Promise first.”
Axis hesitated, then nodded. “I agree. What is it I have to do to bring FreeFall back?”
The GateKeeper’s face collapsed in on itself until she resembled nothing more than a skull covered with a thin parchment of skin and a wig of stiff horsehair. “Listen,” she rasped.
Axis listened.
When she was done, Axis looked almost as cadaverous as she did. “Even Borneheld does not deserve that,” he whispered. “That is horrific. Barbarous.”
“You promised,” she hissed, “and even now I can exterminate FreeFall’s soul so that he will never know the existence that waits for him on the other side of the Gate.”
Axis had no choice. “Then you have a bargain, GateKeeper.”
“Remember, the conditions of the contract must be met within a year and a day of your returning to the OverWorld.”
“Yes, I remember. GateKeeper…”
“Yes?”
“Why do you request such a bargain?”
“It is required,” she said, calm once more.
Axis took a deep breath. “And FreeFall?”
“As I promised, StarMan, but you must keep your bargain, or the transformation will not complete itself and FreeFall will wither and die again.”
Suddenly Axis wanted to escape these worlds beneath the surface of the earth into warmth and life again.
“Well,” he finally said, “until we meet again, GateKeeper,” and he sketched a salute and marched back down the gravel-coated hill towards the Ferryman.
“Oh,” the GateKeeper smiled to herself, her face that of a beautiful young girl. “And that will be far sooner than you wish, StarMan.”
Her thoughts drifted as she tallied the never-ending shuffle of souls through the Gate. She hated and loathed the Dukes of Ichtar even more than Sigholt did. Zeherah was her daughter.
29
CAELUM
Azhure twisted over to her side in the bed, hoping she had not woken Rivkah. She desperately needed her sleep for she had trained her archers hard today and was tired and sore, but no matter what she did she could not drift off. And tonight the baby lay heavy and uncomfortable in her womb. Despite the reassurances from EvenSong, Rivkah and MorningStar, Azhure still worried that for a six-months babe, the child was small and rarely moved.
Azhure sighed and eased herself out of the bed carefully, then padded silently across the floor to the door. She hesitated as she considered whether or not to take a wrap with her, but the Sigholt nights were so temperate that the linen of her nightgown would keep her warm enough.
Sicarius rose and followed his mistress out the door.
Leaving the silent corridors behind her, Azhure climbed the narrow staircase to the roof. A few minutes in the night air usually calmed her.
She sighed happily as she reached the deserted roof. A warm breeze blew off the Lake, and Azhure unbound her hair and shook it out. She gazed at the Lake of Life—a long soak in the steaming waters would be the perfect relaxant. But she could not be bothered with the walk. A stroll around the roof should do. Sicarius settled down by the doorway; there was little danger on the roof of Sigholt.
Azhure leaned over the waist-high wall and surveyed the sleeping camps. Around the northern shore of the Lake stretched the tents of the Skarabost refugees, now numbering several thousand. Azhure sighed as her eyes drifted over the faint lights of the camps. Vegetable gardens, although they helped, would not be enough if Sigholt were forced to live off its own resources.
She took a deep breath and held it. The wild gorse was flowering across the hills; already the HoldHard Pass was blossoming with new life as both plant and animal life crept along its length.
“Sigholt will prove the heart of the new Tencendor,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I am so glad that I am a part of this reawakening.”
Still with her eyes closed, Azhure turned and leaned her back against the waist-high wall. When she finally opened her eyes Axis was standing in the centre of the roof, staring at her.
He had said his goodbyes to Orr in the centre of the violet lake of the crystal cave as they bobbed gently in the flat-bottomed boat and then he’d transferred almost immediately, feeling the surge of the Star Dance through his body, revelling in its power. What would it be like to one day manipulate the entire Star Dance rather than the minute portion needed for this Song? Axis forced his thoughts back to Sigholt. How long had he been gone? Was all well?
He felt himself being drawn across a vast distance as if by an unseen hand. The closer he got to Sigholt, the faster he travelled, and Axis feared he would be slammed into its roof with such force that his bones would be crushed.
But just as that horrifying thought crossed his mind, his stomach lurched and he found himself standing on Sigholt’s roof, surrounded by darkness, the stars wheeling in their perpetual dance in the heavens above his head.
Confused, Axis thought he must have somehow transferred back in time to the vision he had seen of Rivkah, young, lovely and pregnant.
But the woman who turned to him was Azhure, not his mother. But like Rivkah, her waist was thickened with mid-term pregnancy.
She opened her eyes, and they widened as she caught sight of him.
Axis opened his mouth, unsure what to say, when a deep and musical voice boomed about him. “Are you true?”
“Yes, dammit!” Axis snapped without thinking, and the bridge, offended, muttered grumpily to herself.
“Azhure? Azhure?” He took one step forward, then just stood and held out his hand.
Azhure stood motionless, still too shocked to move or speak. Somehow she had always thought Axis would stride in across the bridge, and Azhure would meet him serenely, invulnerable behind her uniform and her position as commander in his army. They would talk about the baby sensibly, adults discussing the unexpected outcome of their Beltide excess. They would come to a civilised and utterly mature arrangement whereby Axis would still love and teach his child but neither it nor Azhure would stand between him and Faraday. Indeed, Azhure could tell him about Belial’s proposal, which would solve all their problems, and Axis would be comforted that Belial could relieve him of this small embarrassment.
But here she stood, her hair down, barefoot and only a thin nightgown between her and Axis. There he stood, his face looking tired and strained, his entire body slumping with weariness, but holding his hand out to her as he had on Beltide night, and, oh, curse him! she could feel her blood surge as strongly as it had that night. All she wanted to do was to run light-footed across the space between them and let him hold her and comfort her and tell her that he loved her.
But he did not love her, and that thought alone managed to keep Azhure at a reasonably safe distance.
“Axis,” she said in a voice considerably calmer than she felt. “Welcome to Sigholt.”
Axis stood there, his hand extended, then strode the distance between them and hugged her tight.
Sicarius, watching from the door, sat up, but otherwise made no move towards the pair. He could feel the pull of their blood each to the other.
“Azhure,” Axis whispered. “What have I done to you?” His hand, trembling, gently passed over her rounded abdomen, feeling the tug of the baby’s blood.
“What any man will do to any woman when he lies with her at the right moment,” she said, too lightly.
“Azhure,” Axis asked, “what’s wrong?”
“Oh, Axis.” Azhure’s voice was artificially cheerful as sh
e disentangled herself. “I am sorry that I have presented you with this complication. I can assure you that I won’t try to tie you down. Perhaps,” Azhure’s voice broke a little under the strain, “we can talk about this slight embarrassment in the morning, when you are rested.”
Complication? Embarrassment? Axis couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Did she think she was any of these things? But he could see her discomfort, and was scared that she would dart away any moment.
“You’re right, Azhure. It would be better if we could talk about this in more congenial surroundings. Do you know if there are quarters prepared for me?”
Azhure relaxed. “Yes, of course. Belial has kept the main apartment complex prepared, awaiting you. Axis, you cannot know how pleased all will be at your return. And there is so much to tell you!”
“Then show me these quarters, Azhure. I am sure that Belial will keep me busy in the morning. And I, as well, have news to share.”
Azhure led him down the stairs, Axis raising his eyebrows at the huge hound which clattered after them, but making no other comment. Azhure chatted brightly, telling Axis some of what had been going on in the Keep in his absence. Axis answered in monosyllables, his eyes drifting every few steps to her thickened body. She was going to make him a father! Axis felt light-headed—no other woman had ever done this for him. A father. The thought sobered him. He would not fail this child. This child would know its father. It would have no cause for doubts. No cause for nightmares.
The corridors were quiet, deserted at this time of the night, and no-one was there to see Azhure let Axis into the main apartment complex.
“Come in, Azhure,” Axis said easily, “and help me light the lamps. Besides, there is something I have to say to you.”
The main apartment suite consisted of several chambers grouped about a central one, where Axis and Azhure now stood. It was richly furnished with warm, mellowed woods and draped and cushioned in yellow and crimson damask. To one side a door to an equally opulent bedchamber stood ajar.
The hound settled quietly by the door, his golden eyes on his mistress.
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