Starman

by Sara Douglass

  Perhaps the mewly creature could be trained, after all.

  55

  THE DREAM

  From the edge of the great forest Azhure flew north-west, across the Nordra and down the HoldHard Pass. Flew almost literally, for Azhure wrapped herself and her horse in so much power that she made the eight- to ten-day journey in under three. Behind her the hounds coursed silently, their breath reserved for running.

  Azhure did not stop the entire way, and yet, when she reined up before the bridge into Sigholt, Venator still pranced as fresh as the hour he had begun his run and the hounds milled restlessly about his legs.

  “Well?” Azhure demanded as the horse stepped onto the bridge.

  “He is gone,” the bridge mourned, “and we do not know where. I—”

  The bridge had been about to confess her own sin in his kidnap but Azhure had not waited to hear it. Already she was sliding from Venator’s back in the courtyard of the Keep and running for the entrance.

  Rivkah, sitting morosely with Cazna in the Great Hall after their evening meal, leapt to her feet as the door burst open.

  “Azhure!” She held out her arms to hug her but Azhure evaded them.

  “Well?”

  Cazna stood, her face pale. For two days and nights she had remained abed, so terrified she could not rise, seeing again and again as Imibe was torn apart; watching again and again as the horrific creature stood over her, one hand raised to smite her dead, the other clutched about Caelum, dangling helpless at his side.

  “The roof,” Cazna said, and Azhure swung her fierce glare her way.

  “You were there?”

  Cazna nodded, then winced and cried out as Azhure seized her shoulders in rough hands. “What happened?”

  “We were on the roof. Imibe, myself and the children.”

  “DragonStar too?” Azhure snapped.

  Cazna nodded, her blue eyes enormous.

  “And?”

  “And…and a great shadow fell from the sky. A Gryphon, from the description I have heard of them. On its back was…a creature fouler than any nightmare, Azhure. He went straight for Imibe, who held Caelum. She…she was torn to bits.”

  Azhure briefly closed her eyes. Imibe had been a friend. Poor Imibe; and yet she had died a warrior’s death, protecting Caelum to the last.

  And poor Caelum. Twice in his short life to have such horror descend on him from the skies. “And?”

  “And the creature seized Caelum from her arms,” Cazna continued hoarsely, more terrified now by the anger in Azhure’s eyes than by the memory.

  “And yet you lived? Why, Cazna?” Her voice was very soft.

  “Would you that I died too, Azhure? Would that make you feel better?” Now it was Cazna who battled with her temper. “The creature turned and came for me. I thought I was dead! I cowered on the paving, trying to protect Drago with my body…”

  Would that he was the one taken, Azhure thought.

  “…but he paused, his talons,” Cazna shuddered, “red with Imibe’s blood, then stepped back. ‘A witness,’ he said. ‘Good.’ Then he mounted his flying creature, Caelum…Caelum still caught fast in his claws, and flew away. Azhure…Azhure! I could do nothing!”

  Rivkah glanced at Cazna, then took Azhure by the arm. “Azhure,” she said, “Azhure, who was it?”

  Azhure looked at her, confused. What did she mean? She blinked, then realised that the women could not know. “Gorgrael,” she said.

  “Oh Stars!” Rivkah cried. “Gorgrael? Why?”

  “Why do you think, Rivkah? For the company?” Azhure’s voice crackled across the hall and Cazna stepped backwards. Never had she seen Azhure so angry.

  “Why, Rivkah? To trap either Axis or myself.”

  “Azhure, what will you do?”

  Azhure stared at her. “I will go after him. I have to. How can I abandon Caelum to Gorgrael?”

  “But you just said that—”

  “A trap? Yes, it surely is. But better that I be trapped than Axis.” Azhure paused. “Better I die than he.”

  Then she turned on her heel and stalked from the hall.

  The roof was quiet, bathed in cold moonlight. Yet Caelum’s terror still reverberated here. When Azhure closed her eyes she could feel his scream, see with his eyes as the shadow plummeted from the skies, recoil with him as Imibe’s hot blood splattered across his face.

  She lowered her head into her hands and wept. What could she do? She had virtually exhausted her strength in her mad dash to Sigholt—could she now do the same to reach Gorgrael’s Ice Fortress? No. No, not that. Even with renewed strength and power it would still take her days, weeks, to reach the icy tundra.

  And by then Caelum would surely be dead. If Gorgrael did not kill him, the boy would not be able to live so long with this degree of terror. Even now, even if she could rescue him this night, the experience would scar him for the rest of his life.

  Azhure sank to her knees, then slowly collapsed so that she rested her forehead on the cold stone paving.

  Caelum was dead. If not now, then soon.

  She cried until she could cry no more, then she slowly sat up, her face ravaged with grief. She sniffed, and tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

  “Here, let me do that for you.”

  She jumped, even though she’d instantly recognised Adamon’s soft voice.

  He knelt down beside her and held her close, cradling her against his warm body, wiping her face with soft, dry hands.

  “Adamon…”

  “I know, sweetheart, I know.”

  “Why does Caelum have to be the one to suffer like this? Why? Why not me or Axis?’

  “Have not you and Axis suffered enough, Azhure? Why wish more on yourself?”

  “But Caelum!”

  “Shush,” he crooned into her hair, holding her tight against him. “Caelum yet lives, and he is as strong in body and spirit as his parents.”

  “But—”

  “I know, Azhure. But now you listen to me.” Adamon drew back so he could look her in the eyes. “You were right when you told Rivkah that Gorgrael wants to trap Axis. But he does not know you. He does not know the strength of your love, nor the strength of your determination. There remains the slight chance that you can rescue Caelum.”

  Azhure seized on the hope he offered. “How? Can I storm Gorgrael’s Ice Fortress? Can I destroy him as I did Artor?”

  Adamon risked a small smile, masking his own anxiety. “So many questions! Azhure, to rescue Caelum will take all your courage and cunning and then more. Gorgrael is not like Artor. He is dangerous…far more dangerous than the Plough god, and if he corners you, traps you, then the Prophecy will be torn apart and Axis will die.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then Gorgrael would have you, Axis’ Lover, and your death would be Axis’ death.”

  “The third verse…” Azhure whispered.

  Adamon nodded. “Yes, the third verse. Azhure, you cannot go storming in there with hounds clamouring and an arrow to the Wolven. Gorgrael would laugh at you, rip your hounds apart and break the Wolven over his knee—he may doubt himself sometimes, but never doubt that he is more powerful than you. And once your bow and your hounds were gone, Gorgrael would take you. And he would have many weeks in which to enjoy you before Axis arrived.”

  Azhure leaned back, her face white and still.

  “Knowing all this, Azhure, do you still want to chance rescuing Caelum? Knowing that to fail would mean not only your death and your son’s death, but Axis’ as well?”

  “And if Axis and I survive, how could I look him in the eye, knowing that I hesitated to risk myself—”

  “And Axis,” Adamon added under his breath.

  “—in Caelum’s rescue?” She paused. “I have no choice. I gave Caelum life, and I would risk my life to let him live his.”

  Adamon had expected nothing less from her. “Then listen to me, Azhure. You will have to use all your power, and all that I lend you, to rescue your son.
And this power will have to be tempered with even more guile. Now, did you not carry Caelum within your body for nigh on eight months?”

  Azhure nodded.

  “And is he not flesh of your flesh?”

  Azhure nodded again.

  Adamon smiled and kissed her gently. “Then listen to me, Azhure. Listen well.”

  She sat in a shaft of moonlight, letting it surround her, fill her.

  She was naked, her raven hair spilling down her back and over her breasts, the moonlight rippling over her ivory skin and sparking blue glints in her hair.

  In a corner sat Adamon, Azhure’s blue suit in his hands, his eyes fixed on the woman. He sent her all the strength of his power.

  Azhure let it flood her, renew her own strength, bolster her courage, calm her.

  She put everything from her mind save the beauty of the moonlight and the warmth of its caress. “Lady Moon,” she said, and she talked only to herself, “bathe me in your light.”

  The moonlight flared and Adamon blinked in the sudden radiance. But he did not shift his eyes from Azhure.

  “Lady Moon, bathe Tencendor in your light.”

  And the Moon bathed the land in her light, and across the land, men and women stirred as dream filled their sleep.

  “Dream,” Azhure whispered, her own eyes wide.

  But she did not see Sigholt’s roof. Instead she saw the land as the moon saw it. Saw every field and furrow and laneway. Saw every roof and every doorway. Saw, and heard, as dogs sat back to howl their homage. Saw cats slink into shadows and owls blink and tilt their heads in thought.

  The shadow of the Moon slid over the land and with it slid Azhure’s mind eye. There lay Carlon, people still crowding the midnight streets, pointing to the sky.

  She smiled.

  There lay the Grail Lake and the Cauldron Lake and the Fernbrake Lake, and they winked at the moon.

  Azhure winked back.

  There, to the north, lay Axis’ army, and moonlight flooded the campsite so that sentries shaded their eyes and all those asleep murmured as dream flooded their minds. They all dreamed of the same thing.

  There tossed Axis, half asleep, half awake. He mumbled also, but then his sleep quietened and deepened as the dream caught him. He smiled.

  “Dream on,” Azhure whispered, and she let her gaze rest a moment.

  To east and west and north and south the tides beat and tugged at the shores of Tencendor and with them fluctuated the dream. The Moon, driver of the tides and keeper of dreams.

  “North,” Azhure whispered, and the moonlight surged northwards, a flood in itself, and the northern Avarinheim and Icescarp Alps rippled underneath.

  And then…then the great northern tundra. Stretching unmapped for as far as the imagination would allow, flat ice, barren soil, lifeless.

  Except for the great Ice Fortress that reared in a thousand reflected colours towards the moon. A gigantic prism that was too beautiful for the horror it contained, and yet horror it was, for it was no natural creation.

  “Linger,” she whispered, and the moonlight lingered.

  Watching, Adamon saw her draw a deep breath and close her eyes. She was there.

  Courage and daring, Azhure, and good fortune, my darling.

  Moonlight bathed the Ice Fortress, and as the light swept down its corridors and across its halls and through its spaces, Gryphon mewed and sighed in their sleep. And they all dreamed the same dream.

  Gorgrael twisted in his chair, uncomfortable, half awake yet too languorous to rise and fall to his mat before the fire. He whispered and muttered and…finally succumbed to the dream.

  He dreamed of a white light so pure he almost cried at its beauty. It called to him. Whispered. “Lover? Lover? Lover?”

  “Yes,” he muttered. “Yes, I am here.”

  Deep in sleep, the tens of thousands of Gryphon writhed and trembled across the spaces of the fortress, each seeking her lover.

  Azhure tilted her head back and moaned deep in her throat and Adamon leaned forward, sending all that he could without sending the last spark of his life as well. Courage, my darling.

  And Azhure took courage.

  She gazed at the Ice Fortress from her vast height. Then she began to feel. Feel…feel the tiny heartbeat that reverberated through the moonbeam towards her.

  She knew that heartbeat. Had not her body cradled it for eight months? Had not her arms clasped it to her breast for a year and more after her body had struggled in its birth?

  Thump-thud.

  Azhure trembled.

  Thump-thud.

  She moaned.

  Thump-thud.

  And she grasped it, using it to pull her towards the Ice Fortress.

  Thump-thud.

  She disappeared from atop Sigholt and Adamon cried out.

  Thump-thud.

  She descended through the moonbeam, letting the thud of her son’s heart pull her to him.

  Thump-thud!

  Gorgrael dreamed of a woman of such exquisite beauty that his breathing quickened and a moan escaped his lips. She walked the corridors of his Ice Fortress, her hands extended, her mouth open in longing…and she walked towards him!

  Azhure walked the dreams of every sleeper in the land. Many called her name, many more cried wordlessly, wanting her, reaching for her.

  But only in one habitation did she walk in actuality.

  Gorgrael moaned again, louder this time, and he writhed in the chair. Never had he seen a naked woman before, never had he thought a woman deprived of her clothes could stir such desires in him. Never! This was a sensation worth revelling in!

  His blood surged with the ebb and flow of the tides that beat relentlessly at the edges of the northern ice-cap.

  His clawed hands clenched the arms of his chair in time with the crash of the waves.

  And still she came. She walked sinuously, invitingly, a smile on her face, gladness lighting her eyes. She stepped about the writhing Gryphon, uncaring, and shook her hair back from her face and off her body and laughed…and Gorgrael cried out.

  He clung to the dream, for he did not want to lose this. Not now! Not before she had reached him!

  She was outside his door now, and it glided open before her.

  Yes!

  Now she glided, glided across the floor, and Gorgrael’s mouth fell open and his tongue unravelled and dripped across his chin.

  “I have come only for you,” she whispered, behind his chair now, and the next moment he felt her hands on his shoulders, and then sliding down his body, sliding, sliding…

  His could not help himself and his body convulsed.

  “For you only,” she whispered, and her mouth brushed his brow.

  Oh! she was so exquisite!

  “Only for you. Come.”

  Oh!

  “Come.”

  And Gorgrael’s eyes flew open and he turned to grab her, to throw her to the floor and to take her as she so desperately wanted.

  But his claws seized only thin air.

  Snarling in frustration and desire Gorgrael leapt to his feet and…

  …saw the beautiful woman, naked, aching for his touch, standing with the mewling infant in her hands and cradled to her breast. Moonlight flooded into the chamber and bathed her in light so pure it seemed almost as if she were made from moonlight herself.

  “Only for you,” she whispered into the boy’s hair.

  Still trapped by the memory of his dream Gorgrael’s solitary thought was to wrest the tiresome infant from her hands and seize her himself. Oh, he groaned, see how smooth the skin, see its sheen, see the curve of hip and breast and the loveliness of her face as she turned towards him.

  Yes, tear the baby from her arms and possess her. A moment more, a single breath, and she could be his.

  She lifted her mouth from the baby’s hair and smiled at him. “Lover,” she whispered, and Gorgrael lunged.

  And she vanished, and the baby with her.

  Gorgrael’s arms embraced nothing
but the lingering of her scent, and he coupled with nothing but the rough stone floor as it rushed to meet him.

  Howling in fury and maddened frustration he scrambled to his feet, his silver eyes narrowed now, his mind fully alert.

  And saw nothing but the loneliness of his chamber.

  And heard nothing but the heave of his own breathing and the…

  …Thump-thud, Thump-thud, Thump-thud…

  …of a retreating heart.

  “Bitch!” he screeched to the vaults above him, and around the corridors and apartments of his fortress Gryphon rose in a single black cloud.

  “Bitch!” he screeched yet again, and at first he did not realise the absence of the baby, or its significance. All he knew was that the woman had teased him, flaunted herself in his dreams and in her flesh, and had then denied him the gratification his body demanded from her.

  All over Tencendor, men and women cried in loss as the dream wavered and slipped away. Hands clutched at blankets and tears moistened pillows.

  Gorgrael’s shrieks ended as abruptly as they had begun. Now he remembered where he had seen that face before.

  The woman, terrified, clutching the baby to her as the Gryphon plunged.

  The woman, riding laughing beside Axis, the bow slung easy over her shoulder.

  The power that had emanated from her.

  Gorgrael snarled, low and vicious.

  And now the baby was gone.

  She had snatched him! She had deluded Gorgrael in his dreams, invaded, penetrated, and duped.

  Promised favours, and then left him lingering with only the floor to embrace.

  And she had snatched her son back! The bait was gone!

  Now Gorgrael’s entire body spasmed with fury, and he let his power ripple forth. Gryphon erupted screaming into the night and surged out of the Ice Fortress in a continually expanding ring, seeking, hunting, tracking.

  But they and their master were too late.

  The night was dark with thick cloud now and the moonlight had disappeared.

  And so had she.

  “Hunt!” the Destroyer cried to his Gryphon, and their efforts doubled.

  “Hunt!” he whispered, and this time he did not particularly care what they hunted so long as they killed! Ripped apart! Tore limb from limb! Sated!