“Godmother? What is that?”
“Each child born among us has a godmother and godfather bonded to them. They act as spiritual guardians to the child through his or her life. To protect them from demons and to show them the way of the ice.”
Urbeth’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, I’d like that, Ho’Demi! You are very gracious.”
Ho’Demi waited patiently.
“Oh, very well,” Urbeth snapped. “Take your people and go. But on one condition.”
“And what is that?”
“That you never leave them to drift lonely and sad on the pack ice for so long again. I prefer to sleep soundly at night.”
“Done, great Urbeth.”
“Done,” she muttered, heaved a great sigh, and rose to her feet. She padded over to the nearest tree, considered it an instant, then gave it a great swipe with one of her massive paws.
The tree swayed, then a great crack rent the air. The tree toppled and, as it fell, its upper branches caught those of its neighbour and brought that crashing to the ground as well. As its neighbour crashed to the ground, so it enmeshed its neighbour, and the destruction spread among the trees. Soon the sound of cracking timber and the smell of pine resin filled the morning, and pine needles floated thick through the air, causing everyone, even Urbeth, to turn aside and cough and wipe at their eyes.
“A nuisance,” she was heard to mutter, “from start to finish.”
Gradually people rose from the great tangle of branches and pine needles, in groups of ones and twos to begin with, then in greater numbers. All looked bewildered, all were thin with drawn faces and haunted expressions, but all were alive. As they stared at the bear and the warriors beyond her, their eyes filled with tears and they stretched out their arms, calling softly.
“I would suggest, Ho’Demi,” Urbeth said, “that your warriors would be better put to fishing and sealing than standing about with their mouths open. These sleepers will be hungry.”
Then, with the utmost dignity, she padded her way towards the sea.
“Urbeth,” Ho’Demi cried, “I thank you!”
“Accepted,” the bear called over her shoulder, then she paused. “It was a great joke, Ho’Demi, because the Skraelings knew where your people were. They stood about in whispering hordes before this forest for weeks, but they would not approach. Anyone would think they did not like trees.”
Then she was gone, plunging into the grey waters and paddling her way towards the icepack.
64
THE CRUEL WORLD
Axis and Azhure stayed one more day, then informed Ho’Demi they would travel on to Talon Spike.
“There is nothing for us to do here,” Axis said. “As much as I would like to stay and explore the wonders of The Necklet or learn the mysteries of hunting the seal from the back of the pack ice, I must travel eastwards.”
“I understand, StarMan. Gorgrael still waits. You will prevail.”
Axis laughed harshly, and looked away.
“I must say that, and I must believe it,” Ho’Demi said, “for if I do not, then there is no hope, and Urbeth will have saved my people for nothing.”
“Well then, I must not let Urbeth down. She would be cross if she thought all her effort had been wasted.”
“One day you will return, StarMan, and I will teach you to hunt seals.”
“Perhaps I will bring my son,” Axis grinned, his good mood returning, “and we shall stumble about the pack ice together.”
Azhure smiled also, and leaned forward and kissed Ho’Demi gently on the cheek. “And I shall come back, Ho’Demi, and talk some more with Urbeth. She must have great mysteries to explain.”
Sa’Kuya stepped forward and gave Axis a package of Tekawai tea; now they had reached the Icebear Coast the Ravensbund people could replenish their stocks. “You will be travelling still further north, I think, StarMan. Take this tea with our blessing, and when you drink it think of the Ravensbund people whose thoughts will always be with you.”
“I thank you, Sa’Kuya.” Axis stowed the package in the packs that hung behind Belaguez’s saddle. “Ho’Demi, I leave you my three thousand men. Use them if you want, or send them home.”
“I shall not keep them overlong, StarMan,” Ho’Demi said, bowing slightly in recognition of the gift. “The Skraelings have all gone from the Ravensbund and we live in tents, so there is no rebuilding to do. Perhaps for a few weeks they can help us build up our stocks of seal and fish, but I think they will be longing for their own lands and families. I shall send them back to Carlon.”
Axis nodded. “Well, Azhure? Are you ready for Talon Spike?”
She smiled at him. Both were looking forward to the week it would take them to travel to Talon Spike; they had rarely had much time alone in past months. “I’m—” she was interrupted by an anxious voice behind them.
“StarMan! You’re not leaving me?” Arne stood there, his face stubborn.
“Arne,” Axis said, “I have no further use for an army where I go. After Talon Spike I must travel alone, for what I must do can only be done by me.”
Azhure hoped Arne would not make a fuss.
But Arne had every intention of making a fuss. For three years he had been driven by the Veremund-inspired impulse to protect Axis. He had ridden at Axis’ back through battlefield and marketplace and snowfield. He had constantly watched for hands reaching to daggers or eyes sliding towards assassins. Every stranger had been a potential traitor, every smile a potential dupe, every mouthful potential poison. The only time that Arne had been away from Axis had been during the months Axis spent in Talon Spike and the UnderWorld, and those months had left him feeling empty and directionless. He had no intent of suffering through such again, not when Axis walked to face his worst threat yet. “I am coming with you,” he said stonily.
“Arne. I must go alone.”
But Azhure saw advantages in Arne’s presence. “Axis,” she said, her voice gentle, persuasive. “What does it hurt if Arne travels with us to Talon Spike and then perhaps even to the Earth Tree Grove with you. And then…why, he may not help you in your battle with Gorgrael, but he will prove true company on the way.”
Arne shot her a grateful glance.
Axis shot her a glance too, but his was speculative. “Stars above, Azhure, next you’ll be saying that you want to come along as well.”
There was truly nothing that Azhure would have liked more to do, but she knew her presence would mean his death. So she shrugged, and spoke with a light voice. “I would not risk taking Caelum with me, my love, and I will not risk him alone again. Not until Gorgrael lies dead at your feet. Besides, I promised Rivkah I would be there for the birth of her son.”
“So while I face the threat of Gorgrael alone, Azhure, you would midwive the birth of yet another brother?”
She flinched at his tone, but she kept her voice steady. “Axis, I cannot come. You know this.”
Axis sighed. Yes, he knew it.
Sometime during this conversation Arne realised that his presence with Axis had been tacitly agreed to. “Thank you, Lord,” he said, and a smile lit his normally dark and impassive face.
“Well, get to your horse then, dammit,” Axis snapped, and Azhure turned away as well, and mounted silently.
Ho’Demi and Sa’Kuya, flanked by several dozen of the Ravensbund people, stood and watched them ride off.
“He will come back one day,” she said.
“Yes,” her husband said, “I think that he will.
“Now,” he turned and kissed Sa’Kuya. “I have a vow to fulfil. Keep watch for me, wife, and brew the Tekawai when you see me return.”
And with that he turned and stomped off to the beach. There were four twin-hulled canoes pulled up on the pebbles, the rest were out with hunters chasing seal. Ho’Demi selected one and dragged it out to the incoming tide, and set off for the icepack.
But he did not paddle directly for the pack. Instead he sent the canoe sliding through the choppy waters to the sout
h, the bleak landscape on his right, the yellowed ice rearing to his left. Ho’Demi wanted solitude for what he was about to do. The ice, he thought, would never be quite the same again, and he hoped that Urbeth would not mind.
After several hours paddling he finally manoeuvred his craft into a stable rift in the ice and moored it solidly. From there he clambered up the steep sides of the icepack until he reached the top, then he stood, and stared.
“Home,” he breathed.
The icepack stretched before him for leagues, grunting and rolling and whispering as the ice constantly shifted and lifted, only to sink again. In some areas birds hopped across, seeking fish that had been trapped in small inlets as the pack shifted, in other areas icebears—Urbeth’s smaller cousins—gambolled, chasing birds or re-telling stories of their greatest seal hunts. It was across this ice that the Ravensbund people spent many months hunting seal themselves, and occasionally taking an icebear for its fur. When the seasons and ice were auspicious, they also hunted whale, but that was dangerous, and each tribe generally caught only one per year, using its meat and blubber to keep warm with food and fire, its curved rib bones as frames for their canoes, and its hide for clothes and the hulls of the canoes.
It was a beautiful, magical world, but it was also a cruel one.
Ho’Demi walked twenty or thirty paces into the ice, then he knelt and reached around behind him, freeing the box he had kept at his belt for many months.
Chitter, chatter.
My friends, I have brought you to your new world.
Chitter, chatter. Is it as cruel as you promised? Is it worth the help we provided?
Ho’Demi smiled and undid the thongs that tied the lid firmly in place. Crueller, my friends. Can you not feel the bite of the wind?
Yes…yes, we can, chitter chatter.
Then revel, my friends, and may you give this place more soul than it currently has.
He tore the lid off the box and leaned back. There was a burst of…energy—he did not know how else to describe it—and then the box was empty.
Well, my friends. Do you like it?
We love it! Thank you, Ho’Demi!
Listen to me, my friends. As this pack ice moves and shifts, so you will spread out among the pack and the ice floes that surround it. Others share this ice. My people, as well as the birds and the fish and the seal and whale and all those who hunt them. None will disturb you, and you must not disturb them.
He paused. Do not pick at their minds.
Never, never, chitter, chatter.
But if you see those Skraelings again, if they ever touch the ice, then you may nibble at their minds, for they are not wanted here.
Ho’Demi smiled. Few, if any, would realise the presence of these souls, for they only touched the minds of those with the gift. He turned and retraced his steps to his canoe, slipping as the ice moved underfoot, and anticipated the Tekawai Sa’Kuya would have waiting for him.
65
FINGER OF THE GODS
Arne was as unobtrusive as possible, content just to be there, and he rode forty or so paces behind the StarMan and the Enchantress, allowing them some privacy. Axis and Azhure appreciated this, and after the first hour or so each day they forgot his presence. At night, they always blinked in mild surprise when they turned to see Arne setting up his solitary campsite some distance from their own.
Caelum slept. He woke in the evenings and played with his father and listened to the enchantments Axis taught him, and he spent the first hour of each day’s ride gazing wide-eyed at the world from Azhure’s back, but then he would gently drift into sleep, although his parents’ conversations filtered into his dreams, and he learned even while he slept. And the tides spoke to him too, the waves crashing rhythmically into his sleepy mind, as did the wind and the scent of salt and ice along the hundred-league beach of the Icebear Coast. It was an extraordinary landscape, stark but majestic and beautiful. To the south, the alps rose sheer and black, while to the north the grey—blue sea crashed on the pebbled beach, the icepack grinding behind it, the sea birds wheeling and crying with eerie voices above.
Sometimes the beauty of the Icebear coast grew so extreme, and the cries of the sea birds so haunting, that Azhure and Axis would kick their horses into a wild and breathless gallop, the Alaunt streaming out to each side and in front of them, adding their cries to those of the birds.
Arne kept his horse to a restrained canter, knowing he would catch them in the end. Even he, dour as he was, was affected by the savage scenery they passed through, and sometimes tears streamed down his face.
Five days out from DeadWood Forest Axis reined Belaguez to a halt late one afternoon.
“Look,” he said, pointing, and Azhure saw Talon Spike rearing out of the clouds. They sat for long minutes, staring at the mountain, wondering at its majesty and splendour.
“What will become of it, do you think?” Azhure asked eventually.
“Become of it?”
“For a thousand years it was the home of the Icarii, but now most, if not all, will live in the southern regions. StarDrifter told me that in the days before the Wars of the Axe the mountain was used as a summer residence—a playground for the Icarii.” She paused. “It would be a shame if Talon Spike became a playground again. It has seen too much, and meant too much, for that.”
“I know what you mean. StarDrifter should be there by now, and FreeFall. We can decide together what we shall do with the complex. Ah, here comes Arne. Arne, see that mountain? That is our destination.”
Arne pulled his horse up and stared at the mountain. It was still distant, at least one day’s ride away, but the sight took his breath away.
“Come,” Axis said. “We shall turn south into the alps here. Say your goodbyes to the Icebear Coast.”
“When you come home, Axis,” Azhure said softly, “we shall return here and race our horses the length of this beach.”
Axis reached across and touched her cheek. “Just you and me, Azhure, on a deep moonlit night. Now,” his tone turned brisk, “we shall have some climbing to do.”
He took them through several small ravines that led south, then east, the ground rising the whole way. To the north they could hear Talon Spike’s glacier grinding and splintering its way to the sea, but soon even that was lost in the laboured breathing of the horses.
When they camped that night, Azhure asked Axis if the horses would have to climb much further. There was little feed here in the alps, and she thought the three horses might be weakening slightly.
“No. One of the things StarDrifter and MorningStar made me learn were the entrance ways and passages of Talon Spike. We will climb another hour or two in the morning, and then we should be able to enter one of the tunnels that lead to the foot of the great peak itself. From there we can bed the animals down in one of the lower chambers and ascend into the complex.”
They were in the mountain by noon of the next day. The horses had struggled until they reached the tunnel, which was so smooth-floored and gently graded that they lowered their heads and breathed easy, jogging along with little effort. The tunnel, lit by magical enchantments like all Icarii creations, led into the lower regions of the mountain. Here the riders found stables and fodder for the horses, and once their mounts were comfortable Axis took Azhure and Arne through stairwells and shafts until they reached the higher chambers of the complex.
Axis led Arne to the dining halls where several Icarii sat eating and he left the man in their care. Then he and Azhure continued higher and higher into the mountain. Whatever destruction the Gryphon had wrought had been repaired. The complex was almost empty, and the sounds of the few Icarii who moved through it rang loud and clear.
Azhure shivered, trying to imagine what these corridors must have looked like with thousands of Gryphon crawling through them. For those remaining, the end must have been a horror.
“I wish I could have done something,” she whispered, and Axis took her hand.
“You warned them. It
was their choice.”
“Where is he?” she asked eventually.
“In the Assembly Chamber,” he replied, “waiting for us.”
They entered the Assembly Chamber from the upper archways, silently, halting at the top tier to stare down to the circular floor below.
StarDrifter was there, lying face-down and spreadeagled in the centre of the golden marble.
Azhure gave Axis a gentle push in the back. “Go,” she mouthed, and Axis walked slowly down the steps towards his father.
When Axis was a third of the way down StarDrifter raised his head, paused, then rose to his feet. “Axis,” he said, and held out his arms.
Axis took the remaining steps at a run and embraced his father fiercely. When Azhure joined them both men’s faces were wet with tears.
“I thought I had lost you,” StarDrifter whispered.
“You had. Azhure brought me home.”
StarDrifter turned and embraced Azhure tightly. “Azhure. You are looking well. I have heard strange stories about you,” he leaned back and ran his eyes over her dark blue suit, “and you shall have to spend many hours satisfying my curiosity.”
Axis scrutinised them carefully, at first suspiciously and then he relaxed. Whatever desire StarDrifter had carried for Azhure now seemed to have gone. They were at ease with each other, the bonds of their friendship stronger than he could ever have imagined.
StarDrifter lifted Caelum from Azhure’s back and hugged him as well. “I heard that Gorgrael had taken him…” His voice faltered.
Axis smiled. “Again we must thank Azhure.” Then his smile died as realisation hit him. “Stars, Azhure,” he breathed. “None of us would be here if not for you.”
She looked at him quizzically. “Explain.”
He took her face in his hands. “You are our salvation, Azhure, and you were birthed by a darker power—WolfStar. The last prophecy of the second verse of the Prophecy of the Destroyer has come to pass.”
Starman Page 57