Enchanter

by Sara Douglass

  Axis well knew that the military campaign to win Achar would probably be the easiest part of his campaign to reunite Tencendor. Much harder would be persuading a reluctant people to accept those who they had been taught from the cradle to loathe. The Seneschal had over a thousand years’ head start on Axis, and a tight grip in the poorer rural areas of Achar. Sometimes worry about how he would be able to persuade the Acharites to accept first the Icarii and then the Avar kept Axis awake well into the night.

  Axis was happiest, as were the Icarii, when they camped alone under the night skies among the endless grasses of the Seagrass Plains. Most camps were of one night’s duration only, and instead of erecting tents they would sleep rolled into blankets or wings on the hard earth, the stars reeling above them. The skies were clearing the further south and the further into spring that Axis rode, and by mid-Flower-month, when they were approaching southern Skarabost, the skies were invariably clear day and night. As he had when riding at the head of the Axe-Wielders, Axis would often pull out his small travelling harp about the camp fire at night. Axis’ voice had improved even more with his training as an Icarii Enchanter, and his camp fire was one that many vied with each other for the privilege of sitting around. Azhure, her son at her breast, would sit and smile as she watched Axis over the flames of the fire. Her love for him increased daily, and she put aside any thought of where they were headed. She did not know that once Faraday had sat across a camp fire and listened to Axis sing, loving him as Azhure now loved him.

  There was one night when Axis made sure that his army was well clear of any village. The first day of Flower-month. Beltide. For the first time in a thousand years, Beltide was celebrated in Achar. The Icarii, two thousand strong, built large bonfires and the Ravensbund people, who also celebrated Beltide, cooked for an entire day. The Acharites, puzzled by this celebration but infected with the suppressed air of excitement that both the Icarii and the Ravensbund people exhibited, accepted StarDrifter’s invitation to partake of this most sacred rite. The night was long, and filled with beauty and music. MorningStar led the rites, assisted by one of the younger Enchanter Icarii women travelling with the SunSoar command, and their sensual and haunting dance celebrating the resurrection of the earth after the death of winter brought Icarii, Ravensbund and Acharite to their feet in union, dancing with them, seeking partners among the throng.

  It was a special night for Axis and Azhure. They distanced themselves from the main revelry, taking their son and a blanket to a small hollow where they lay and recreated the magic of that night a year ago, while their son slept. Their blood sang strong and clear each to the other, as it had Beltide a year past, and as it had every other night since, when they made love. Axis wondered again at the extraordinary way Azhure made him feel, at how close he came to the Star Dance as he moved deep and certain within her body.

  What Axis did not realise was that Azhure could hear and feel the Star Dance too. It was one of the reasons she had not been able to resist him when Axis had returned from the UnderWorld, one of the reasons she would find it all but impossible to walk away from him, why she would accept any role, no matter how demeaning, if it kept him returning to her bed. The music consumed her, making her blood surge as wildly as the moon-driven tides against strange coasts. But Azhure never mentioned how she felt to Axis. Having known no other man, Azhure simply assumed that all women felt as she did when they lay with a man they loved.

  On a night like Beltide, when the magic of the earth was strong in the air about them, and the stars spun closer to them than they did on more ordinary nights, the Dance sounded so loud and so clear in Azhure’s mind that she lost herself among it, revelling in the ecstasy and power of the Dance and the beat of distant tides. She grasped at Axis’ back and shoulders and stared into his eyes, and all she could see were the Stars within them, stretching back into infinity, and all she could hear was the beat, beat, beat of the waves.

  She did not know that her eyes contained as many Stars as did Axis’, nor that Axis was as lost in her eyes as she in his.

  And she most certainly did not know of the waves that wept and cried and called her name along the coasts of Tencendor even as she cried and called Axis’ name.

  That night they conceived their second and third children, but that night the Prophet, watching, did not laugh at all.

  In the last week of Flower-month Axis sat Belaguez atop a small rise and frowned at the sprawling manor house below him. It was the handsomest residence that he had yet come across in Skarabost, and he had come out of his way to see it. Behind him, and surrounding the manor house at a distance of three or four hundred paces, his army lay encamped.

  Belonging to Isend, Earl of Skarabost, Faraday’s father, the manor house was not defended, only having a head-high brick wall about the building itself. Isend was not a fighting man, and Axis knew he would always retreat rather than stay and defend his home.

  Behind Axis, some dozen or so paces, Azhure sat Venator, her eyes on Axis’ back.

  Axis turned and stared at Azhure, then signalled her and the commanders about him that he would ride down to the house alone.

  He cantered Belaguez down the slope, then slowed him to a walk as he rode through the gardens. The spring flowers and shrubs were blooming among miniature trees, pruned so that they grew no more than shoulder height. The gravel of the paths was neatly raked, as if the gardeners had been out only this morning. Axis rode through the ornate black iron gates, dismounted, and tied Belaguez to the railings. Then he continued on foot, his blood-red cloak billowing out behind him.

  As he stepped onto the shaded verandah, his boot heels loud on the terracotta tiling, the front door swung slowly open. A woman in her late twenties stood there, waiting calmly for Axis to approach. She was very much like Faraday, with the same green eyes and chestnut hair.

  Axis stopped as he reached the door, groping for words. He had not thought what he would say when he got here—or even what he actually wanted.

  The woman smiled at him, and it was Faraday’s smile. Axis’ heart lurched in his chest. How could he have forgotten the beauty of her smile?

  “You are Axis, I presume,” she said, her voice low and confident. “Once BattleAxe, now something a little more strange, I think.” She looked at his cloak and the emblem blazing across his chest. “And far more colourful than once you were.”

  She held out her hand. “Welcome to Ilfracombe, Axis. My name is Annwin, daughter to Earl Isend, wife to Lord Osmary. I do hope you have not come to burn my home to the ground.”

  Axis took her fingers and kissed her hand. “I thank you for your welcome Annwin, and I assure you that I have not come to burn Ilfracombe to the ground. Is your father home?”

  How strange, Axis thought, that we should both be acting as if this is nothing more than a polite social visit. Please, madam, ignore my army. I take it everywhere.

  Annwin stepped back and motioned Axis inside. She led him down a dim and cool corridor into a reception room, waving Axis into a chair and taking one opposite.

  “I regret my father is not home, Lord Axis. Earl Isend is in Carlon.” Her eyes gazed steadily into his. “With my sister.”

  Axis was glad that Isend was not here. He did not think he could deal with that simpering fop now. Isend had arranged and then pushed Faraday’s marriage with Borneheld with no thought but his own gain.

  “Do you know her?” Annwin’s face remained coolly polite. “The Queen?”

  “I met Faraday in Carlon some eighteen months ago. She accompanied myself and the Axe-Wielders some distance into Tarantaise where, through some misfortune, she became separated from my command.”

  “You were careless, Axis.” Now Annwin’s voice and eyes were hard. “Faraday is a precious gem, beloved of her entire family and of most in Skarabost. You are not the man rumour touts if you could so easily have lost Faraday to misfortune.”

  Axis’ face tightened. “There are forces moving beyond the walls of this peaceful house, Ann
win, that perhaps you do not understand. Both Faraday and myself have been caught up by the Prophecy to use much as it pleases.”

  Annwin inclined her head in a show of civility.

  “I met her again in Gorkenfort,” he continued. “It was a hard place, but she made it beautiful simply by her presence. It was only with her help that so many escaped the horrors of the Skraeling army that lay in wait outside the fort’s walls.”

  “I have heard the story of the fall of Gorkenfort,” Annwin said slowly. “It is said that the fort was betrayed by treachery within. By your treachery, Axis.”

  “We all fought for the same thing, Annwin—to keep the Skraelings from Achar. But we were too weak. No-one could have saved Gorkenfort, and yet no-one betrayed it either. We simply went our different ways once we had escaped.”

  “You to the shadowed mountains of the Forbidden.”

  “To Talon Spike, yes. It is the mountain home of the Icarii. Do you know of the Prophecy of the Destroyer?”

  Annwin dropped her eyes. “Yes,” she admitted.

  “I am the StarMan mentioned by the Prophecy, as I am sure rumour has bruted it about Skarabost by now. I currently ride with my army to unite the three races of Tencendor. Only then can we defeat Gorgrael.”

  Annwin’s eyes glittered with anger. “Child’s lies, I do not—”

  Axis broke in. “And Faraday also has her part to play. She is beloved of the Sentinels, and of Avar, the People of the Horn. The Horned Ones who wander the Sacred Groves, the magical glades of the Avar, consider her their Friend.”

  Annwin’s eyes widened. “Faraday?” she stuttered. “Faraday is caught up in this?”

  “Yes, but don’t tell Borneheld. I don’t think he would take it very well.”

  Annwin was quiet a very long time. “Faraday is Queen,” she said finally, “in Carlon. She is not happy married to Borneheld. Do you march to Carlon?”

  Axis nodded.

  “Will you free her from Borneheld, Axis?”

  “I will marry her, Annwin, when I take the throne of Achar,” he said. “It is all I have ever wanted.” And the Stars forgive me for that lie, he thought to himself. But for so many months it was all I thought that I would ever want.

  “Ah,” Annwin breathed, her eyes glistening. “So.”

  “Annwin, I wonder if I might sit awhile in Faraday’s room.”

  Surprised by the request, Annwin simply nodded. “Come. I will show you.”

  Axis sat a long time in the simple room which had been Faraday’s as a child. Here, surrounded by her memories, he could finally think about her without the deep guilt over his betrayal of her love making him shove all thought of her to one side.

  He hummed the Song of Recall, and watched as glimpses of Faraday as a young child, growing to maturity and beauty, flickered before his eyes. He smiled. She had been an awkward child, her hair carroty, her face long and freckled. But she had been joyous and giving, qualities she had not lost as she transformed through girlhood into the beauty she was now. There were numerous childish disappointments and frustrations. The loss of a beloved cat. A storm that ruined a picnic. Her mother’s gentle chidings at selfish tempers. But happy memories predominated. Faraday had grown to womanhood in this room contented and loved.

  Axis had not lied when he told Azhure he loved her. But did his love for Azhure undermine what he felt for Faraday? Or did the two simply exist side by side? Was he, poor fool, in love with two women? Both so different that he could love one of them without compromising his love for the other?

  “Yet I have never told Faraday that I loved her,” Axis said aloud, seeking excuses for his behaviour. “So perhaps she assumes too much in thinking that I do.”

  He had never told Faraday he loved her. That was true. He had said many things to Faraday, he had intimated that perhaps he loved her, but he had never actually spoken the words.

  “And she was the one who chose to run away at the Ancient Barrows, fleeing to Borneheld’s side and marrying him,” Axis reasoned aloud. “How then could she expect me to wander chaste and desolate through the rest of my life?”

  Axis sat on Faraday’s virginal bed a long time, voicing soft excuses for his behaviour through the room, until finally his eyes fell on a soft rag doll, lying legs and arms akimbo on the floor. It reminded him of everything Faraday had gone through. She had been pushed and manipulated by so many—by Isend, by the Sentinels, by the Prophecy itself, even by Raum, and certainly by himself, that she had almost no control over her own life. Like the rag doll, Faraday lay lost and forgotten in Carlon, waiting only for some other force to come along and fling her about according to its will.

  “You bastard,” Axis whispered to himself. “How can you try to justify the way you have betrayed Faraday?”

  But the fact remained; Axis could not right the wrong he had done Faraday by removing Azhure from his life. He loved both, in totally different ways, and he would have both.

  And both would have to learn to accept it.

  He sighed and stood up. Perhaps coming here had not been such a good idea after all. It had only gnawed at his conscience, and Axis had so many things to worry about now he did not need a wounded conscience to cope with as well.

  “Faraday,” he murmured as he picked up the rag doll and sat it straight and comfortable on a chair.

  47

  CARLON

  Borneheld stared out the window of his private apartments in the palace at Carlon, refusing to look Jayme in the face.

  The Brother-Leader was furious and did not bother to hide it. What was the use of assisting this…this oaf to the throne if all he could do was sit still and lose almost half the nation to Axis?

  “He has captured Skarabost,” Jayme fumed, his normally implacable face strained and lined with anger. “And is moving down towards the Bracken Ranges. Arcness and Tarantaise will fall next. And you just sit there and say ‘let him’?”

  Borneheld took a deep breath and watched a crow circle high above the walls of Carlon. If he ignored Jayme for long enough the man might simply go away. Borneheld was beginning to get very, very irritated with this bothersome priest. He had been King almost a year now, and the Seneschal’s dark manipulations which had seen him gain the throne seemed very far in the past. The world had changed. Power had shifted away from the Seneschal. Perhaps Jayme did not yet realise that.

  “I sit here and say ‘let him’,” Borneheld suddenly snapped, “because I have no other Artor-forsaken choice!

  “I have been fighting across Ichtar and the north of Aldeni for more months than I care to remember, Jayme, while you have sat here like a spider in your web, pulling people each and every way you want them to go. You think you understand what lies at risk here? What issues are at stake? Forgive me, Brother-Leader, but I did not see you walking the battlements of Gorkenfort as Ichtar collapsed about me. I have not seen you trudging ankle-deep through mud and sludge in the trenches at Jervois Landing as Skraelings surged down from the north. You have NO idea of what it is like to command an army that is half dead from fatigue and sad-heartedness!”

  Jayme did not flinch as Borneheld surged from his chair and shouted in his face. The old man stood straight and tall, his robes of office hanging in thick blue folds about him, a jewelled sign of the Plough hanging from a heavy golden chain about his neck. “No, I was not there to watch you lose Gorkenfort,” Jayme said, “and I was not there to watch you let the Forbidden chase the Skraelings back from Jervois Landing. I understand you lost close to half your army when the Ravensbund savages packed up and left one night, Borneheld? Forgive me, but I would have made sure that ample watch was kept over such savages.”

  Borneheld’s hands clenched at his sides and he kept himself from hitting the Brother-Leader only through a supreme effort. “The Ravensbundmen accounted for only a third of my forces,” he hissed, “and I had posted a guard. But the Ravensbund have lived too close to the Forbidden for too many years, and undoubtedly used enchantments to slip past the e
ncircling troops.”

  “Then if you still have some twenty thousand men, Borneheld, it does not explain to me why you keep them fat and idle in Carlon while Axis swings south and west. Surely an army is to be used. Or do you enjoy watching the Forbidden swarm back over the territories that the Seneschal won for you a thousand years ago?”

  Now Jayme’s temper was re-emerging. What was Borneheld thinking of to let Axis get away with so much? Jayme didn’t care that Gilbert had counselled Borneheld to move his army to Carlon. All he wanted was Axis stopped.

  “I cannot risk abandoning Carlon to Axis,” Borneheld said, “which is exactly what I will do if I ride off to the east without a clear idea of where the bastard is. Axis will come here eventually. He has to, if he still thinks to seize the throne from me. So,” Borneheld lowered himself back into his chair, “I shall sit here and wait for him. When Axis arrives, his troops shall be tired and battle-wearied, nursing blisters on their feet and a dozen small wounds each from the battles they have fought to win their way this far. I, meantime, will await them with troops rested and refreshed.”

  Jayme slowly shook his head, staring at Borneheld. He had thought, as had Moryson, that Borneheld represented the Seneschal’s best chance of survival. How was the Seneschal going to survive if Axis thundered at the head of an army across the Plains of Tare towards the Tower of the Seneschal?

  “Need I remind you, Borneheld, that the Tower of the Seneschal rests on the far side of the Grail Lake? Axis will decimate the Brotherhood before you can rally your army to the front gates of the city.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t worry you,” Borneheld said. “You spend most of your time here in the palace, anyway. You and your two advisers. But rest easy. I shall meet Axis on the Plains of Tare well before he approaches your white-walled tower.”