“Drago,” StarDrifter said. “Do not so hate yourself. Few possess the courage to acknowledge their own shortcomings. It would have been easy for you to drift away among the Stars, regretting what you’d done but making no effort to right your wrongs. You had the courage to come back, and face the fruit of your sin.”
“I had almost no choice, grandfather,” Drago said. “The Demons propelled me through the Star Gate. I could not have said no had I wished to.”
“Nevertheless,” StarDrifter said, “having come through the Star Gate you could have run for Coroleas, or made across the Widowmaker Sea. But you came here, to face those who have most cause to hate you.”
Gods, Askam thought, his face carefully hidden in shadow, Drago has everyone convinced he is the hero of the moment, doesn’t he. But what if, StarDrifter, you feathered idiot, Drago still aids the Demons? What if Axis is right, and Faraday is wrong?
Drago shrugged aside StarDrifter’s words. “In actual fact, I first planned to die, for I did not particularly want to come back. But then,” he raised his face and smiled at Faraday, “the Sentinels spoke to me—”
“The Sentinels!” Faraday’s green eyes widened. “They are alive? You saw them? Did they come back?”
Drago smiled at her excitement. “Yes, they live, but no and no to your other two questions, Faraday. I did not ‘see’ them, for they are spirit only, and they did not wish to come back through the Star Gate, preferring to spend their eternity drifting among the stars. They love you, Faraday, but they did not want to come back.”
“Are they still arguing?”
Drago laughed, and most about the fire smiled at the sound. “Yes, they still argue. I think the stars must ring with the music of their debates.”
“So, they helped you to survive,” StarDrifter said.
“Yes, but only after they persuaded me to aid Caelum and Tencendor as best I can.” Drago sighed. “Not that Caelum will accept my help.”
“Drago, do not blame him for that,” Zared said.
“I do not. Instead I reproach myself for creating such a fear within him.”
“And now?” DareWing asked. This sitting about and listening to confessions was all very well, but there were over thirty thousand men and Icarii standing about, waiting for direction.
For the first time an expression of uncertainty crossed Drago’s face. “I want to help,” he said, “but—”
Faraday put a hand on his shoulder, interrupting him. “There are many things that I have come to know over the past few months,” she said, “and, regrettably, few that I can tell you for the moment. In time, it will become Drago’s story to tell, and I ask only that you wait.”
“Faraday—” Zared began, as eager as DareWing to make a start to something.
“Hush. Listen to me. At the moment none of us know much, but that can be remedied. First, may I ask what you all know, and understand?”
“Demons, through the Star Gate,” Herme put in. “They have ravaged this land.” Briefly, he gave details of what hours were safe to venture forth, and what not.
“And we are thankful, Lady Faraday,” Theod said, smiling and inclining his head at her, “that before the Demons broke through you spread the word that safety could be found indoors during those hours the Demons ravaged. Without the warning, most of Tencendor would be lost.”
“As it is,” Zared said, “our scouts at the edge of the forest report seeing crazed people wandering the plains, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups.”
“And there are also herds of livestock,” DareWing added. “Animals that are caught in the grey miasma of the Demonic horror seem to behave…most peculiarly. As if they, too, have gone mad.”
Faraday’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. She had not thought about the animals. “Do you know why the Demons have come to ravage?” she asked, pushing the conversation forward. They could think about the animals later.
“To find what lies at the foot of the Sacred Lakes,” Leagh said, “in order to resurrect one of their number, the worst of all. Qeteb, the Midday Demon.”
Faraday nodded. “The answer to all our woes must lie at the foot of the Sacred Lakes. All I know is that Drago and I must go to the Cauldron Lake, as soon as we can. What is there needs to speak with Drago.”
Everyone, including Drago, started to speak at once, but Faraday hushed them.
“I will take Drago there, and once we get back…well…once we get back I hope that we will have some answer to our current dilemma.”
“Cauldron Lake?” Zared said. “But that is far south. It will take you days to get—”
“Seven or eight days to get there and back,” Faraday said.
“What?” Zared exploded. “Wait! A week? Gods, Faraday! Tencendor lies ravaged and you say, ‘Sit here and smile and wait a week’.”
“Zared,” Leagh said, glancing at Faraday. “What can we do but wait? Where can we go? We cannot move beyond the shelter of this forest for more than a few hours at a time, and that is no time to get an army anywhere. We must wait. Drago—what will you be able to tell us when you get back?”
“Leagh, I don’t know. I am sorry.”
Zared sighed, accepting. Leagh was right. They needed some answers. “Well, at least take two of our best horses. You might as well move as fast as you can.”
Faraday laughed. “I thank you, Zared, but no. My two donkeys can carry us, and they know the way well enough.” Faraday sat awake late into the night, watching as Tencendor’s army slept curled up in blankets or wings in an unmoving ocean spreading into the unseeable distance.
Drago lay close to her, and she reached out, hesitated, then touched his cheek briefly.
He did not stir.
She sighed, and turned her gaze to the forest canopy, needing to sleep, but needing more to think. She was appalled by the scene earlier, and the face of hatred Axis had chosen to show Drago.
All Axis could see in Drago was the malevolent infant, using every power he had to try to put Caelum away so that he, DragonStar, could assume the name and privileges of StarSon. Faraday could hardly blame Axis and Azhure, and certainly not Caelum, for their distrust of Drago—but it was going to make things difficult. Very difficult.
At that thought Faraday almost smiled. Here she was fretting at the fact that Drago’s parents did not welcome the prodigal son with open arms and tears of joy, when beyond the trees ravaged such misery that SunSoar quarrels paled into insignificance.
But to counter the misery there was Drago. And somewhere, secreted within his craft, there was Noah. Between them, those two must somehow prove the saving of Tencendor.
Faraday let her thoughts drift for a while, content to listen to the sounds of the sleeping camp. Somewhere a horse moved, and snorted, and a soldier spoke quietly to it. The sound of the man soothing the horse made Faraday think, for no particular reason, of the stunning moment when Sicarius had leapt to the aid of Drago. Drago? Faraday knew how devoted those hounds, and especially Sicarius, had always been to Azhure, but she also remembered that for thousands of years they had run with the Sentinel, Jack, and she wondered if their origins lay not in Icarii magic, but deep below the Sacred Lakes.
Perhaps no wonder, then, that Sicarius had leapt to Drago’s defence.
There was a slight movement at her side, breaking Faraday’s thoughts.
She looked down. Drago had rolled a little closer, and now lay with his head propped up on a hand.
“Faraday—what did I come through the Star Gate as? You transformed me somehow, back to this form…but what did I come through the Star Gate as?”
“You came through as a sack of skin wrapped about some bones.”
A sack, he thought…an empty sack, just waiting to be filled.
“And the rosewood staff was with me?”
“Yes. You insisted on searching for it before you would let me drag you from the Chamber.”
Drago frowned slightly. “I can remember almost nothing of the Star Gate Chamber, or the first f
ew hours afterwards. Everything, until I woke refreshed in the cart, is blurred and indistinct.”
Faraday remained silent, content to let Drago think.
“You evaded Axis’ questions about the Sceptre very nicely,” he said finally. “You know the staff is the Sceptre.”
“Probably.”
“I wanted to give it to Caelum. Damn it, Faraday, I stole it. It belongs to him, and he needs it back.”
She tilted her head very slightly so he could not read her eyes, and again remained silent.
“When Axis taxed me about the Sceptre I looked for the staff, intending to hand it to Caelum. But it had disappeared. Later, hours after Caelum and our parents had gone, I chanced upon it. Faraday, do you know where it was?”
She turned her face back to him again. “No.”
“It was in the blue cart.”
“It has its own purpose, Drago. And, undoubtedly, it did not want to be handed back to Caelum.”
He sighed and rolled onto his back, staring at the forest canopy far above. “Like all beautiful things,” he said, and glanced at Faraday, “I do not understand it.”
She bit down a grin, but he saw it anyway, and smiled himself.
“Why do you help me, Faraday? Why were you there in the Star Gate Chamber, waiting for me?”
“Someone needed to believe in you. I found that no hard task.”
“You evade very well.”
“It comes naturally to me.”
Drago smiled again. He did not know why Faraday was with him, or how long she would stay, but he hoped it would be a while yet. It was a vastly new and immensely warm feeling to have such a beautiful woman walk by his side and say softly at night, “I believe in you.”
Drago’s grin subsided and he silently chastised himself for romanticizing Faraday’s motives. It was obvious she knew some secret of Cauldron Lake, and it was that knowledge, or that secret, that kept her by his side. Like himself, she wanted only to aid the land, in any way she could, and at the moment she apparently felt the best way was to continue at his side.
He felt her fingers at his neck, gently feeling the bandage, and he looked at her. Gods, she was beautiful.
“Does the wound hurt?” she asked, trying to divert his attention.
“A little.”
She drew back. “It should heal without giving you too much trouble. At least your father has enough experience with a blade to give you a clean cut and not some jagged hole.”
“Then I am grateful for the small mercies of parental experience and skill,” he said, “for, frankly, I thought he had me dead on the sliding edge of that blade.” He paused, his own fingers briefly probing the bandage. “Faraday…at some point after you dragged me from the collapsing chamber I asked you who I was.”
He frowned. “Why did I ask that?”
“I have no idea,” she lied. “But do you remember that you answered your own question?”
He nodded very slowly. “And yet I do not understand my answer, nor the impulse that made me mouth it.
“The Enemy. I am the Enemy. What does that mean?”
“Go to sleep,” Faraday murmured, and turned away and lay down herself, and although Drago stared at her blanketed back for a very long time, she said no more.
Drago dreamed he was once again in the kitchens of Sigholt. The cooks and scullery maids had all gone to bed for the night, and even though the fires were dampened down, the great ranges still glowed comfortingly.
He smiled, feeling the contentment of one at home and at peace.
He stood before one of the great scarred wooden kitchen tables. It was covered with pots and urns and plates, all filled with cooking ingredients.
But something was missing, and Drago frowned slightly, trying to place it.
Ah, of course. Of what use were a thousand ingredients without a mixing bowl? He walked to the pantry and lifted his favourite bowl down from the shelf, but when he returned to the laden table, he found that the bowl had turned into a hessian sack, and that the plates and bowls on the table no longer contained food, but the hopes and lives and beauty of Tencendor itself.
“I need to cook,” he murmured, and then the kitchen faded, and Drago slipped deeper into his sleep.
Night reigned. Terror stalked the land. To the south of the Silent Woman Woods seven black shapes, a cloud hovering above them, thundered across the final hundred paces of the plain, and then vanished into the forest west of the Ancient Barrows.
Zared woke early, just as Drago and Faraday were rising and shaking out their blankets.
“Are you sure you won’t take two of my fastest horses?” he asked, standing up and buttoning on his tunic.
“No,” Faraday said. “The donkeys will do us well enough.”
“However,” Drago said, and his face relaxed into such deep amusement that Zared stilled in absolute amazement at the beauty of it, “there is one thing I would that you give me. I had a sack, and have lost it. Can you find me a small hessian sack? I swear I do feel lost without it at my belt.”
And he grinned at Zared’s and Faraday’s bemused faces.
Far, far away he stood on the blasted plain, wondering where his master was. Last night he’d dreamed he’d heard his voice, dreamed he felt him on his back. Was there a use for him, after all? No, no-one wanted him. He was too old and senile for any use. His battle-days were behind him. His legs trembled, and he shuddered, and the demonic dawn broke over his back.
7
The Emperor’s Horses
They sat, arms about each other, under the relative privacy of a weeping horstelm tree. Outside the barrier of leaves moved Banes and Clan Leaders, whispering, consulting, fearing.
Isfrael, Mage-King of the Avar, lifted a hand and caressed Shra’s cheek. She was still handsome in her late fifties, and even if the bloom of youth had left her cheeks, Isfrael continued to love her dearly. She was the senior Bane among the Avar—had been since she was a child—but she was beloved to him for so many other reasons: she was his closest friend, his only lover, his ally, his helper, and he valued her above anything else in this forest, even more than the Earth Mother or her Tree.
When Isfrael’s father, Axis, had given his son into the Avar’s care when Isfrael was only fourteen, it had been Shra who had inducted him into the clannish Avar way of life, and into the deep mysteries of the Avarinheim and Minstrelsea forests and the awesome power of the Earth Tree and the Sacred Groves. She had made him what he was, and he owed her far more than love for that.
“Can you feel them?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
He trembled, and she felt the shift of air against her face as he bared his teeth in a silent snarl. “Demons now think to walk this forest!”
She leaned in against him, pressing her face against the warmth of his bare chest. “Can we—”
“Stop them?” Isfrael was silent, thinking. He pulled Shra even closer against him, stroking her back and shoulder.
“Who else?” he whispered.
“WingRidge said that—”
“WingRidge said many things. But what has the StarSon done to help. Nothing…nothing. The Avar have ever had to fend for themselves.”
“Can we stop them?”
“We must try. Before they get too strong.”
Shra laughed softly, humourlessly. “They are strong enough now! Did they not break through the wards of the Star Gate? Isfrael—those wards were the strongest enchantment possible! Made of gods, as well as of the trees, earth and stars!”
“The Demons used Drago’s power to break those wards.”
They sat unspeaking a while, thinking of the implications of Isfrael’s words.
Then Isfrael trembled again, and Shra leaned back. His face was twisted into a mask of rage—and something else.
Nausea.
“Their touch within the trees desecrates the entire land!” Isfrael said. “I cannot stand by and let them stride the paths unchallenged. And see, see.”
His h
and waved in the air before them, and both saw what ran the forest paths.
“See what abomination they have called forth,” Isfrael whispered. “I must act.”
The seven beasts snorted and bellowed, hating the shade that dappled their backs underneath the trees. They ran as fast as they dared. Their escort had not entered the forest with them, and they were fearful without the comforting presence of the Hawkchilds. So they ran, and as they ran the trees hissed and spat, trying to drive these abominations from the paths of Minstrelsea.
But something more powerful—and more fearsome—than the trees pulled the beasts forward.
Mot lifted his head, and laughed. “They come!” he cried, and the Demons rose as one from the rubble where they had been waiting.
StarLaughter scrambled to her feet, her lifeless child clutched tight in her arms.
“What comes?” she said. They’d been waiting here for days, and although the Demons had waited calmly, StarLaughter had been almost beside herself with impatience. Her child awaited his destiny—and all they could do was sit amid the ruined Barrows. This was all they had come through the Star Gate for? She lifted her head. Something did come, for she could hear the distant pounding of many feet.
There was a movement beside her, and Sheol rested a hand on StarLaughter’s shoulder.
“Watch,” she said, and as she spoke something burst from the forest before them.
StarLaughter’s eyes widened as the creatures approached and slowed into a thumping walk. She laughed. “How beautiful!” she cried.
“Indeed,” whispered Sheol.
Waiting at the foot of the pile of rubble were seven massive horses—except they were not horses at all for, although they had the heads and bodies of horses, their great legs ended not in hooves, but in paws.
StarLaughter thought she knew what they were. When she’d been alive—before her hated husband, WolfStar, had thought to murder her—she’d heard Corolean legends of a great emperor who had conquered much of the known world. This emperor had a prized stallion, as black as night, which had been born with paws instead of hooves.
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