Sinner

by Sara Douglass

  But he obeyed anyway. Not to do so would be worse than complying with his order.

  DareWing attacked, if such a manoeuvre could be called attack, at dawn. The townsfolk were only just waking up, and most were still fogged by sleep. The militia were cold after a night’s watch – and, DareWing noted, were sparse anyway. Zared must have moved most of his forces further south.

  No-one offered much resistance. The six Wings dropped out of the dawning sun, subduing the watch with virtually no bloodshed. As had been the case in Kastaleon, the watch assumed that the Icarii dropping out of the sky were on a friendly, if puzzling, mission and did not offer any resistance until too late.

  Once the militia were subdued, DareWings ordered guards be placed at the main roadways, public buildings, and informed the mayor personally that for the moment Severin was under martial law. StarSon Caelum’s martial law.

  “What?” the mayor spluttered over his eggs and toast. “Why?”

  “You have not heard what Zared has done?” DareWing asked.

  “No.” But the mayor narrowed his gaze, and DareWing wondered if he had guessed.

  “He has seized Kastaleon from Prince Askam, claiming it as compensation for the people of the West and North. As reprisal, Caelum has ordered Severin seized.”

  “He can’t do that!”

  “Nevertheless,” DareWing said, “he has. Now, I require a tour of the town and what fortifications and weapon stores it has. Immediately, if you please.”

  The mayor pushed aside his toast and eggs and stood up. As he did so he glanced at his wife hovering in the kitchen doorway. She nodded slightly, and backed silently into the kitchen.

  “This way,” the mayor said, and pushed past DareWing to the front door.

  “Severin is taken,” the farflight scout reported to Caelum, standing in Sigholt’s central courtyard.

  “Good,” Caelum said, and turned to Askam. “Then we ride for Kastaleon in the morning. Will we be able to get there before word reaches Zared of the Strike Force’s action?”

  “Yes, StarSon. Severin is slightly closer to Kastaleon as the raven flies, but we can use the river transports on the Nordra. They await us at Gundealga Ford as I speak.”

  “Good, then see to the final preparations.”

  Caelum strode back inside Sigholt, irritated at his inner uncertainty. He knew he was doing the right thing. Surely. What else could he do? Negotiate with Zared over the throne of Achar? Never! A King of Achar would only ferment the hatreds of the past.

  But would Zared do such a thing? Did he not say that he only wanted to create a ceremonial position?

  “No,” Caelum muttered aloud as he strode along the corridors towards his private apartments. “If not Zared then his son, or his great grandson. I cannot allow even the seeds to be sown, let alone watch the harvest ripen into despair.”

  Caelum opened the door to his apartments, and stopped short in shock. “WolfStar!”

  He slowly closed the door behind him. “Why are you here, WolfStar? Is it the children? Are they closer?”

  “No,” WolfStar said shortly and far too sharply, and gestured impatiently. “Caelum, where did your father secrete the Rainbow Sceptre?”

  “Is that for you to know, WolfStar?”

  “Tell me!” WolfStar stepped forward.

  Caelum stiffened, but held his ground. “The Rainbow Sceptre is none of your –”

  “Confound your objections, boy! I oversaw its birth!”

  “But the Sceptre was my father’s, and through him, mine, and I would know why it is you want to see it.”

  WolfStar breathed deeply, tendons standing out on his neck. “Yes, you are correct – the Rainbow Sceptre is yours by right and, by the Stars! I hope you will have the chance to use it!”

  Caelum frowned, but WolfStar went on.

  “I want to see it, Caelum StarSon, because I have every reason to believe it is no longer here.”

  “What?”

  “I think Drago has stolen it. I am sure of it.”

  “No,” Caelum whispered. “No. It cannot be!”

  Zared’s treachery had pushed Drago from Caelum’s mind over the past few days. He’d had patrols out looking for his brother, and had sent word throughout Tencendor for everyone to be on the watch for him, but no-one had heard or seen anything.

  Now his nightmare came rushing back, and for an instant Caelum felt himself impaled at the end of DragonStar’s sword. Had he seized the Rainbow Sceptre?

  Was that the cry of the hunt he could hear?

  How would Drago manage to seize the Sceptre?

  Was that the thunder of the black horseman in the distance?

  If Drago had it, what could he do with it?

  “Caelum!” WolfStar said, and seized Caelum by the elbow, shaking him. “Where is it hidden?”

  Caelum struggled with, and then mastered, his unreasoning fear. “Come with me,” he said, and led WolfStar into the corridor. They moved down until they reached a smaller hallway branching off to the left. It had several doors either side, but Caelum ignored them.

  He walked to the end of the hall, and stopped at a wall of grey stone.

  “Where?” WolfStar said.

  Caelum did not answer, but instead hummed a snatch of music. He waited, frowning, then hummed it again.

  “What –?” he began, but before he could say any more the wall shimmered, then dissolved, revealing a small chamber.

  WolfStar glanced sharply at Caelum, but for the moment he walked silently into the chamber. It was bare, save for red-plastered walls and a small window high in one wall. The oakwood floor revealed no trapdoors.

  “Where?” he repeated.

  Again Caelum did not answer, but again hummed a melody. This time he did not have to repeat it.

  A shelf appeared on the back wall, and on that shelf was a beautifully worked silver casket.

  “My father had this made to house the Sceptre,” Caelum said. “He meant to study it, explore it, but it always reminded him so much of Faraday’s death he never did.”

  He paused, the casket in his arms, and looked at WolfStar. “Drago could never have stolen the Sceptre,” he said. “The enchantments that hide this casket are powerful indeed.”

  Enough for you to falter over, thought WolfStar. Or is there something else wrong, Caelum? Why stumble so badly?

  “Open it,” he said.

  “No-one knew of these enchantments save my father and myself,” Caelum said, delaying the inevitable. “No-one knew where the Sceptre –”

  “Open it!”

  Caelum’s eyes dropped. He took a deep breath, then the fingers of his right hand pressed into a secret catch on the side of the casket.

  The lid sprung open.

  Revealing nothing but the scarlet, silk-lined interior.

  The Sceptre was gone.

  “Stars!” Caelum cried, and for an instant he could almost feel the tip of the sword slicing through his chest, feel the taste of Drago’s bloody malevolence in his mouth.

  “WolfStar…WolfStar, there is no way that Drago could have stolen this! No way! He can’t –”

  “Nevertheless, the fact is he has!”

  WolfStar stood thinking, shifting a little from foot to foot, then faced Caelum with such a look of dread that Caelum’s stomach clenched.

  “My boy,” WolfStar said very softly. “Over the past weeks, has your power remained untainted? At full strength? You needed to try that enchantment twice to enter this chamber…”

  “There has been a minor disturbance. But I thought it only because I have been so concerned with my cares that I–”

  “By all the stars in heaven,” WolfStar whispered, his face blanching, “it has begun!”

  And then he vanished.

  Caelum stood, alternatively looking helplessly at the spot where WolfStar had vanished and at the empty cache.

  What did WolfStar mean, “it has begun”? And what should he do?

  For a very long time Caelum stood the
re, the empty casket in his arms, not knowing what to think or do next.

  How had Drago managed to get in?

  What could he do with the Sceptre?

  “Gods,” Caelum eventually whispered, his face ashen. “It has begun again. Drago has set his sights on my murder, it seems. Where are you, Drago? What do you plan?”

  Did he ever dare sleep again?

  WolfStar strode through the archways surrounding the Star Gate chamber, startling the two Enchanters standing watch there into anxious exclamation.

  “Oh, be quiet!” WolfStar snapped, “I am not here to eat you!”

  He walked to the Star Gate and stood silently, wrapping his golden wings about him, cocooning himself against the terror he half expected to be rushing towards it from the other side.

  But there was nothing.

  Nothing save the whispers of the children.

  We’re coming… we’re coming, WolfStar!

  “They’re closer,” one of the Enchanters dared to say. Both of them had backed a safe distance away.

  WolfStar shot her a furious look, but she was right. They were closer. Significantly closer.

  But still far away, WolfStar tried to reassure himself. Besides, it was not the children that so worried him.

  Was there a hint of anything else approaching the Star Gate?

  WolfStar bent his entire power and concentration to the task. Listening, feeling, probing.

  But even WolfStar’s power, extensive as it was, was not enough to feel anything else.

  Was it because there was nothing else?

  Or was it because…they…were using the approach of the children to mask their own approach?

  WolfStar shuddered. He didn’t know whether the slight diminution in his own power – and it was only slight – had any real connection with those who waited beyond the Star Gate. WolfStar didn’t even know if Drago had gone through the Star Gate. Had he murdered Orr, then fled back down one of the passageways in terror? Was he lurking in the waterways somewhere? Where was the Rainbow Sceptre?

  The red doe. Faraday. She had been here. She would know.

  WolfStar tried to concentrate, tried to think it through. If – and only if – Drago had gone through, then would he have survived? Unlikely. But even if he had snapped out of existence, that left the Rainbow Sceptre floating lost amid the stars…lost for any who cared to pick it up and make use of it.

  “We need that Sceptre,” WolfStar murmured. “Caelum – Tencendor! – has no chance without it. None!”

  Confound that piece of rotting carrion! What had happened? And what if…they…were approaching behind the children?

  What should he do?

  He needed far more power to scry them out than he commanded. “The power of the Circle,” he said to the puzzled Enchanters.

  And he needed to know if Drago had gone through the Star Gate, or if the Rainbow Sceptre was still in Tencendor.

  “Faraday,” WolfStar said, and vanished yet again.

  The two Enchanters looked at each other, shaken beyond measure at the renegade Enchanter’s visit, and wondered what they should do.

  42

  ForestFligh’s Betrayal

  Zared narrowed his eyes against the late afternoon sun and stared into the sky. A stiff northerly breeze, redolent with frost, ruffled his black hair. He shivered and pulled his cloak closer. An Icarii approached from the north-west, his wings shuddering with the effort of coping with the wind.

  “He is not armed,” Herme murmured by Zared’s side. They stood atop Kastaleon’s walls, awaiting Caelum’s reaction. Indecision? Action? Retreat? They knew not what, and the unknowing was driving all to short tempers.

  “Even I could deal with a single armed Icarii,” Zared said.

  “Of course,” Herme soothed. “I did not mean –”

  “I know you did not,” Zared said, dropping his eyes from the Icarii momentarily. “I apologise for my tone, Herme.”

  Herme nodded, accepting the apology. They had heard nothing for…what? It was over two weeks since they’d taken this isolated pile of stones. In that time Caelum could have done anything.

  The Icarii circled lower and one of the guards called out a challenge.

  The Icarii answered, his words lost in the wind for Zared and Herme, but the guard waved the Icarii towards where they stood.

  “It’s one of the Lake Guard,” Zared said, every muscle in his body tensing as the Icarii dropped down towards him.

  “Caelum’s answer,” Herme said, laying a hand on the hilt of his sword, even though the birdman was unarmed. “They wouldn’t fly about Tencendor for anyone else.”

  “Hail, Prince Zared,” said the Icarii, landing gracefully some two or three paces away from them. He was a striking birdman, with brilliant blue plumage and eyes and luminous white skin. “My name is ForestFlight EverSoar, and I –”

  “You come from Caelum?” Zared said shortly.

  “Indeed, my Prince. He has instructed me to greet you well in his name, and to –”

  “Oh, get on with it, man!”

  “My Prince, StarSon has instructed me to say that while he abhors your actions, he has reluctantly conceded that talks on the throne of Achar must proceed. Accordingly he bids that you wait here until he can summon the other Heads of the Five in Council at Kastaleon.”

  Zared looked at the Icarii carefully. “He is summoning a Council to meet here?”

  “At this very moment, my Prince,” ForestFlight said, unblinking.

  Zared looked to Herme. “Well?”

  Herme chewed his lip. “You seem to have startled him into some good sense, Zared. Although, gods knows, Askam must be furious.”

  Zared nodded. “Well, nothing for it but to wait for the Council to arrive, I suppose. ForestFlight, I thank you, please avail yourself of the hospitality of Kastaleon before you leave. ForestFlight? You may leave. Now.”

  ForestFlight stood his ground.

  “Go, birdman!” Herme snapped, sliding his hand back around the hilt of his sword.

  “Of course, there is that which Caelum very carefully instructed me not to tell you,” ForestFlight began.

  Zared and Herme stilled. “Yes?” Zared said.

  “StarSon would very much like you not to know that eight days ago six Wing of the Strike Force took Severin, nor would he like you to know that even as I speak he and Prince Askam lead a force down the Nordra to retake Kastaleon and take you, the Duke of Aldeni and the Earl of Avonsdale into custody prior to your trial for high treason against the Star Throne. And we all know, do we not, Sir Prince, how well Caelum conducts trials.”

  Zared could hardly breathe. He stared at ForestFlight, standing perfectly calm before him, and he struggled to come to terms with what the birdman had just declared. “Severin is taken?”

  “Yes, my Prince. It has been sealed, no-one can leave. That is why you have not heard.”

  “And Caelum is leading a force to Kastaleon? How many? Where are they now?”

  “Some five thousand, Prince Zared. And barring shoals and accidents, they will land during the dark hours of tomorrow morning. His message is a lie. Caelum is determined that the throne of Achar will never be resurrected.”

  Zared stepped forward and took the Icarii’s chin in his hand. “And why are you telling me this, ForestFlight?” he said softly. “Why should I trust you? Is not your complete loyalty to the StarSon?”

  ForestFlight wrenched his chin away from Zared’s grasp. “I answer to no-one save my captain,” he said. “WingRidge gives me my orders. I do not know why he requested I tell you this. You may believe me or not, as you choose.”

  And with that he leapt into the air with a powerful beat of his wings. Zared grabbed at him, but missed. He cursed, then put a hand on Herme’s arm.

  “No, my friend. Do not shout to the guard. Their arrows would never hit him now, and nor would I want them to.”

  “My Prince? What do you think we should do? Was that a false message from Caelum?”


  “I don’t know. But can we afford to ignore it? And Severin? Taken?” Gods! He’d not expected that of Caelum! Zared felt guilt bite deep that an innocent town suffered for his ambition.

  There was a shout from the courtyard below. They looked down. Theod stood there, beckoning urgently. By his side stood a trader Zared recognised from Jannymire Goldman’s coterie.

  “Luck? Or design?” Zared muttered, but stepped onto the ladder anyway.

  “Severin was taken over a week ago,” the trader, Bormot Kilckman, said bluntly.

  “And how do you know –” Zared began, his voice roughened with frustration, when Kilckman thrust a cage at him. Inside was a small, grey pigeon.

  Zared recognised it instantly. “Mayor Iniscue’s bird,” he said softly, then explained to Herme and Theod. “Mayor Iniscue’s wife keeps a score of these courier birds, trained to fly to various locations.”

  “This one landed at Carlon two days ago,” Kilckman explained. “It had a message tube attached with the bare fact of Severin’s capture inside. I caught the next river boat for Kastaleon.”

  Zared looked to the skies again, half expecting to see ForestFlight still circling above. But he was long gone…back to the StarSon he apparently served so badly. There was nothing there save dark clouds scudding in from the north-west.

  Bad weather, then.

  “So Severin is indeed lost,” Herme said. “Is then Caelum a few bare hours away?”

  “What?” exclaimed Theod.

  Zared ignored him for the moment. “We must assume so, Herme. I cannot afford not to.”

  Herme nodded, and quickly told Theod what they’d learned from the Lake Guard.

  Theod paled. “Four or five thousand men? Where would he get that –”

  “Askam sent a thousand of his own men to Sigholt,” Zared said. “Perhaps he thought he’d need them at Council. And Caelum has always had a good force stationed at Sigholt. Coupled with the force he could have called in from Jervois Landing…yes, Caelum could easily have five thousand.”