Sinner

by Sara Douglass

  “You will send – have sent – men to the grave to do it!”

  “How many men did you send to the grave in the pursuit of your dream, Axis?”

  “You will tear this country apart again, Zared! What will you demand next? The resurrection of the Seneschal?”

  Zared’s temper finally broke. He buried his fist in the front of Axis’ tunic and hauled him close. “You are my brother, Axis, not my god! Go strut your fine-sounding phrases and ideals with your immortal companions, but do not tell me what is best for the Acharite people because I don’t believe you have any bloody idea!”

  Axis grabbed at Zared’s arm, staring fiercely at him, but before he could speak Leagh stepped forward and spoke calmly.

  “My husband speaks wisely, if intemperately, Axis. Can you not hear the cry of the crowd? They believe they need their king as much as the Icarii their Talon, or the Avar their Mage-King.”

  “And it is plain to see, Leagh,” Axis said, his eyes not leaving Zared’s face, “that you have not inherited the loyalty of your father. Belial was ever a true friend to me. I had expected the same of you.”

  He finally tore himself free from Zared and faced Leagh. “Do you not care that your brother lies crippled due to the actions of your husband?”

  “Askam?” Leagh’s face was stricken. “Crippled? Zared, what does he say? What does he mean?”

  Axis answered. “Lady, do you not know that Zared caused the death of thousands at Kastaleon? Do you not know that men burned for his ambition? Caelum and Askam were caught in that conflagration. They barely survived.”

  Leagh felt as though she might faint. She stared at Zared, a hand to her throat. “Is what he says true, Zared?”

  “Leagh, I did not tell you, for I had no way of knowing if Askam lay dead or alive. I –”

  Leagh looked back at Axis. “Askam is crippled? What do you mean?”

  “He has an arm torn from him, Leagh. He will be maimed for life for his loyalty to Caelum. And yet here you are. His sister, who he thought loyal to him…who Caelum thought loyal! Were you forced into this marriage, or were you a free and willing partner to Zared’s treachery? What did he tempt you with? A crown? Power? How did he buy your support in this…this foul deed?”

  Leagh looked between the two men, both now staring unblinking at her, both demanding her loyalty, both demanding that she choose. All she would have to do to escape this marriage, and escape Zared, would be to claim she’d not been a willing partner to the marriage. Claim she’d been forced to consent.

  All she’d have to do is lie.

  But had not Zared lied to her? Why hadn’t he told her about Askam? Gods, what should she do?

  “Answer me!” Axis snapped.

  “I…” she began, then she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I went willingly into my marriage, Axis.”

  “Then willingly you shall share the same fate as Zared!” Axis snarled, then whipped about to his brother. “Caelum leads Tencendor now, Zared, and he swears he will lead an army to your destruction! Curse your misled ambition, Zared! Tencendor needs to be united now as never before! Ah! I shall leave you to Caelum. This is not my fight any longer!”

  “If Caelum comes after me – and by coming after me he comes after all Acharites – he will aid in the destruction of your own dream,” Zared said quietly. “All Caelum had to do, all you had to do, was to admit that the Acharites deserve as much pride as do the Icarii, or the Avar, or the Ravensbund. If Tencendor now slides into war, Axis, then know it is a war that SunSoar blindness has started.”

  Axis stared at him, his face working with his fury, then with an abrupt motion of his hand, he vanished.

  His presence and anger stayed for longer. Zared and Leagh stood motionless for some minutes, waiting for it to dissipate, then Zared slowly turned to Leagh.

  “Lady,” he said quietly, taking her hand and kissing it. “I do thank you.”

  Leagh snatched her hand from his, her entire face contorted with an emotion he could not read.

  “You said you would be honest with me,” she said, “and then you set the trap that almost killed my brother.”

  And she turned her back and left him standing there.

  52

  Voices in the Night

  He lay in bed, and listened to the sound of the strange, cold world outside, and the gentle breathing of the strange, cold woman beside him.

  If he had ever believed StarLaughter loved him, or even regarded him well, he no longer laboured under that misapprehension.

  She used him, as did the Questors. As perhaps also that frightening, vacant baby who even now lay uselessly attached to StarLaughter’s breast.

  Lying there, looking with sightless eyes into the night.

  Drago lurched out of bed before he gave in to the overwhelming desire to snatch the baby and throw him with all his strength through the open window. Would the baby bounce when he hit the hard stone ground outside? And once he had bounced and rolled, would he just lie there, and stare, stare, stare?

  He stood trembling, making sure that he’d not woken StarLaughter.

  No. She slept as soundly as ever.

  Slowly he relaxed, taking deep breaths and stretching the muscles of his back and shoulders. It was deep night – he had hours to himself if he wished, and yet hours to do what? There was nothing to do in this bizarre existence save wander amid the petrified stone forest outside and listen to the flock of children whisper for revenge as they swept swift and shadowlike through the trees.

  Perhaps the Questors sat, awaiting some conversation. Drago did not know what they did with themselves through the night hours, but he suspected they did not sleep. More than likely they just sat in their semi-circle of chairs. Watching.

  Drago shivered and walked over to the chair where he’d draped his clothes the night previously. He hunched into a light robe, then his eye fell on the sack of coins.

  He hesitated, then snatched the sack from the chair and wandered over to the archway that led into the stone-frozen garden.

  In the distant night he could make out a blacker shadow whirling through the trees.

  Drago dragged his eyes away from the Hawkchilds, and sat down on the floor, his back against the pillar of the arch, his knees bent, the coins tumbling out of the sack into his lap.

  He picked one up and studied it in the poor light. What did it mean, this staff on one side and the sword on the other? Why had the Sceptre transformed itself into coins? Had the Sceptre meant to do that, or was it an unwanted consequence of the leap through the Star Gate?

  He rolled the coin slowly through his fingers, gradually relaxing, the questions drifting away in his mind. He leaned his head back against the cold stone of the arch, and again dreamed of the hunt. But this time he watched as…

  the doe fled panicked through the forest, the hunters gaining on her, the hounds (birds?) at her heels. In an instant they had her down, and she was torn apart in a flurry of frantic kicking hooves and blood spraying through the…

  Drago’s eyes flew open, his heart pounding, and he stared about the chamber.

  Nothing. All was quiet. StarLaughter lay as if stone herself, the infant staring into the void from her breast.

  He turned his head. Outside the children wheeled through the stone forest, hunting…would they hunt Faraday if they returned?

  Surely not. Surely. They only wanted WolfStar. They would leave Faraday alone. Wouldn’t they?

  But who did the Questors hunt?

  You may have to protect her, as she will protect you.

  Drago jerked halfway to his feet, staring wildly about him. That voice, an old man’s voice, had echoed through his mind but had also seemed to whisper through the spaces about him.

  We are grateful, Drago, that you served to free her.

  Another voice. A woman’s voice, seductive and humorous.

  Thank you.

  Now several voices all at once. Drago stared about, his mouth dry with fear, not moving o
nly because he did not know which way to flee. He recognised the touch of power, and loathed it. Were these the Questors, come to taunt him?

  No.

  “Who then?” he whispered. “Who?”

  Silence.

  We were once free, then gave our freedom to serve the Prophecy and make the Sceptre.

  Drago remembered tales of the five Sentinels, and dimly recalled his father saying once that they had given their lives to make the Sceptre. Hadn’t they been burned…or something?

  Once we were the Sentinels, but no more.

  Drago slowly settled back on the floor, his muscles still tense, every sense alert. He rolled the coin between his fingers again, feeling its smooth, cool metal surface.

  Drago, you have done some reprehensible things. The voice of a stern man. Authoritative. Jack.

  Drago grimaced. Another father figure to hound him and remind him of his mistakes.

  Truly reprehensible things. The woman again, laughing. But nevertheless, you are very intriguing. Yr, the seductress.

  The coin stilled in Drago’s fingers. His legs tingled, warm, as if a large cat had brushed against them.

  Now the voices continued apace, but they talked among themselves rather than to Drago.

  Freed from that damned Sceptre!

  At last!

  Given our freedom.

  Freed to the Stars.

  They continued to chatter, moving into what Drago thought nonsense. Arguments about the lengths of donkeys’ ears, or the precise colour of Faraday’s gown. They talked a great deal about freedom and choice, and then got deep into a debate about whether choice was freedom or imprisonment. He may not have followed their chatter or their reasoning, but Drago listened anyway. They were surely argumentative, but they were also amusing and intriguing, and just the sound of their voices gave Drago a sense of well-being and peace.

  And somehow they seemed to give just a little hope.

  She comes!

  Be still!

  Unpanicked but warned, Drago folded the coin into the palm of his hand, and arranged his robe so that it hid the pile in his lap.

  “And what does my fine man do here on the floor?”

  StarLaughter sank down beside him.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Ah.” She ran a hand through his hair. “My poor man. The Questors will not need you in the morning. Shall we sit and talk? Or shall I teach you how to hold my baby just so when I give him a bath?”

  “Talk,” Drago said hastily and then, to distract her hand which was creeping to his lap, he said the first thing that came to mind.

  “Did you play like this with WolfStar?”

  She sat back, her hands still now, her face hard. “I loathed him then, as I loathe him now.”

  “But surely…you were both SunSoar…you must have loved –”

  “I never loved him!” she spat.

  “No, of course not. He must have been rabidly mad, even then.”

  She was silent a while before she spoke. “He was attractive enough, and sometimes he made me laugh. But he was in the way.”

  “What do you mean?

  StarLaughter looked at Drago carefully, as if assessing him. Then, “I always thought I would have made a better Talon. I intrigued against him – fool WolfStar! He thought I was so sweet, so pliant! He thought of me as a bedmate and a breeder. Nothing else. I hated him for that. So I planned to replace him.”

  Drago thought of his own bid for power, and then shuddered at the thought that he and StarLaughter might be so much alike. “You did not succeed.”

  And, he thought so suddenly he almost jumped, you did not succeed, and I did not succeed, and maybe it was better that way.

  “Succeed? He threw me to my death!” StarLaughter said. “And our child, our baby.” She glanced back to the bed where, Drago was grateful to see, the infant still lay. “He was no father to my baby.”

  “No.” Drago wished he had not mentioned WolfStar. Gods, had he been this bitter? This loathsome?

  “He betrayed me!”

  “Yes.”

  “Twice over, the crow!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He betrayed me twice over. First by casting me to my death…then by lying with another. You bear his blood. I can feel it. Who did he betray me with?”

  Drago hesitated. “With a woman called Niah. She was First Priestess on the Isle of Mist and Memory.”

  StarLaughter laughed, but it was ugly and harsh. “The First? He seduced the First? What did she bear him, a son or daughter?”

  “A daughter. My mother, Azhure.”

  “Ah.” StarLaughter was silent for a while. “Then you have given me another name to hunt.”

  Drago forgot the coins. “My mother? You can’t!”

  “My, my. I thought you loathed your mother for what she did to you. But never mind. I do not mean your mother. I mean Niah. The adulteress. I shall hunt her with as much appetite as I shall hunt WolfStar.”

  Drago suddenly remembered Zenith. “StarLaughter, Niah is dead. She was but human. Forget her.”

  StarLaughter turned her beautiful head and regarded Drago carefully. “Death means nothing, Drago. Surely you have learned that by now. Niah exists somewhere, and wherever she is I shall find her and destroy her. Adulteress.”

  “She did not know who WolfStar was, StarLaughter. She meant you no harm. Hunt WolfStar if you will, but leave Niah alone.”

  “She bore a child.” A live child. “I was left to rot amid the stars, left to bear my child as best I could.”

  By all the stars in heaven, Drago thought, if ever I get back through the Star Gate I am going to live life as a humble carpenter or water carrier. If StarLaughter is an example of what happens to someone when they crave power and revenge, then I think I shall put aside all thoughts of power. Life is enough.

  “My baby should be WolfStar’s heir!” StarLaughter added.

  “And so it shall be,” a soft voice said from the shadows, and Drago tensed.

  Sheol stepped forth, the other Questors behind her. “And what is the title of the heir to the throne, Queen of Heaven?”

  StarLaughter looked inquiringly at Drago. “What is it now, Drago?”

  “StarSon,” Drago mumbled.

  “StarSon!” Mot cried. “Perfect! Son of the Queen of Heaven, StarSon, heir to Tencendor!”

  “Heir to Tencendor,” Rox said, and smirked. “Once he’s caught his breath, of course.”

  Wild laughter rang out and Drago’s heart hammered in terror. He shuffled the coins back into the sack under cover of a fold of his robe.

  “The Queen of Heaven’s child,” Barzula chortled. “StarSon! And so we wish and so it shall be. A StarSon such as has never been before.”

  53

  An Army for the Asking

  Four weeks after the disaster of Kastaleon, Caelum stood alone on the windswept plain of northern Rhaetia and wondered at his father’s courage. He, too, must once have felt this alone, but from somewhere he’d found the strength to best both Borneheld and Gorgrael – and Timozel and every other traitor the star-damned Prophecy had thrown his way.

  Except Axis hadn’t quite disposed of the one who really mattered, had he? Caelum’s eyes swept the sky, searching the stars hidden behind the sun’s brightness. Drago was out there somewhere, communing with his companion demons, plotting again for the destruction of Tencendor.

  Demons that could dull the Star Dance? Wipe Icarii enchantments from Tencendor? Caelum shuddered, and tried to put from his mind the growing tarnish he could feel in his own powers; every day he had to reach harder to hear the Star Dance. His mother and father and WolfStar would see to that – they must!

  Ah! What was he doing? Why did he let his fear of Drago consume him so? With considerable difficulty, Caelum cast Drago from his thoughts. He had treachery more close at hand to deal with.

  Over the past weeks travellers had brought news from the West. Zared. He had “seized” Carlon, with the help of t
he Princess Leagh, and had declared himself King of Achar. Or was that King of the Acharites? Caelum did not care about the stylistic distinctions. All he knew was that Zared now styled himself King of Achar – the Carlonese, at least, cheered him through the streets – and that Caelum would need a war to wrest the West back from Zared.

  A war. Well, if he had to go to war to bring peace back to this land, then he damn well would. Besides, wasn’t that what everyone expected him to do?

  He sighed, and his eyes filled with tears. But war was the last thing, the very last thing that Tencendor needed. Why couldn’t they have peace for longer than a lifetime? Why couldn’t the hatreds and ambitions of the past lie peacefully in their graves? Why should he have to deal with something he thought his father had ended?

  I wish I hadn’t been born first, he suddenly thought. It would all have been so easy if I hadn’t been born first. But only bleakness lay in following that train of thought, and Caelum forced his mind back to his current difficulties.

  He turned and surveyed the plain at his back. Over the past two weeks he’d moved his five hundred south to this point just above the low mountain range of Rhaetia. He’d finally managed to re-establish contact with the Strike Force in Sigholt, and now most were flying south to join him. They’d be here in a few days. Caelum had ordered several units from Sigholt to free the Wings currently in Severin; they should join him shortly as well.

  So at least the Strike Force was on its way – but not much else.

  From the West reports drifted in that Zared, aided by Theod and Herme, had a force that numbered close to fourteen thousand and was growing each day. Word about Zared’s seizure of the Acharite throne had spread faster than a contagious disease, and Caelum had received information that Acharites from Ichtar, Zared’s home province, as well Theod’s Aldeni and Herme’s Avonsdale, were moving south to join their new King in Carlon.

  Caelum should have expected nothing less from those provinces, controlled as they were by their treacherous overlords. No doubt many had been threatened with seizure of lands if they did not support their lords. But men from Romsdale – whose lord, Baron Marrat, supported Caelum – were also reportedly on the move to Carlon.