He pushed Faraday northward as fast as he could, although their progress was slowed by the necessity to shelter within their tent during the Demonic Hours. They became adept at travelling until the last possible moment when they would whip the tent from Drago’s pack and erect it almost in the blink of an eye, dropping their packs outside and snatching the lizard to safety as they scrambled inside.
There they would sit, often talking, but just as often snatching some sleep as the grey miasma settled its heavy infection over the land.
Some few days after they had left the Silent Woman Woods, Faraday began to dream.
At first the dreams were formless, just a feeling of dread and helplessness, but after the third one Faraday began to distinguish the lost voice of a child.
A small girl, helpless, vulnerable, lost, desperate.
Mama? Mama? Where are you? Why won’t you come? Mama?
The child’s lost voice tore into Faraday’s sense of frustrated motherhood. She struggled to reach out to the girl, but she was too far away to reach.
Too far away.
North.
Drago became aware of the dreams one night when he woke to feel Faraday tossing beside him. He lay a moment, staring at her face, then laid a hand on her shoulder and shook her gently.
Faraday jerked away, her eyes wide and desperate.
She stared about the tent, as if trying to remember where she was, then the turned to Drago and grabbed his hands. “Did you hear her?”
“Who?”
“The girl, the little girl.” Faraday sat up. “I can still hear her! Drago, can’t you hear her?”
He shook his head slowly, his eyes concerned. At his back the feathered lizard raised his own head and stared at Faraday.
“Lost,” Faraday whispered. “Somewhere north…”
Drago stroked her thick hair back from her forehead, worried for her, and wondering if her dream was Demon-inspired. Had they scried him out?
As he smoothed her hair back, Faraday’s eyes gradually lost some of their wildness, and she calmed down a little.
“It was dream,” Drago said softly. “Nothing else. A dream.”
Faraday was not ready to be soothed completely. “Must we go to Gorkenfort first?”
“Where else?”
Faraday suddenly realised she was more aware of Drago’s hand stroking her hair than she was concerned about the lost girl, and she jerked her head back, angry that he should have distracted her away from her purpose and frightened by her reaction to him. No. No! No more love. Drago let his hand drop without comment.
“We need to reach her,” Faraday said. “She’s lost.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know…”
“Perhaps after Gorkenfort—”
“No! We should go now. I don’t want to go to Gorkenfort.”
“Faraday…”
But she turned her face away, and after a moment Drago sighed and settled back into his blanket. “We can go nowhere now, Faraday, and Gorkenfort is north anyway. It was a dream. A dream, nothing more.”
But the dreams continued, and they drove their own angling cracks into Drago and Faraday’s relationship. As they turned westwards towards the Nordra, Drago noticed that Faraday kept glancing true north, and she became quieter and quieter the more they moved north-west.
“Star Finger,” she said one morning as they broke camp. “She’s in Star Finger.”
Drago stood and watched her. She was bustling about the tent, folding it as quickly as she could, lifting an impatient hand to jerk stray tendrils of hair out of her eyes and face.
“Faraday,” he said, but she did not look at him, and Drago was forced to walk over and take her by the arm. “Faraday.”
She straightened and stared at him. “Do you not hear her?” she whispered. “She tears into my mind every time I close my eyes. Drago, she’s so lost…so lost!”
Drago looked into her eyes, then drew her against him, trying to give her what comfort he could with his presence. She was stiff and unyielding, and Drago was not sure whether it was because she was impatient to reach the girl, or because she disliked him holding her.
Drago suddenly found himself hoping very much that it was because Faraday wanted to reach the girl.
“We will go to Star Finger after Gorkenfort,” he said quietly. “To see Caelum, and to find this girl of yours.”
She pulled away from him.
“It may be too late then,” she said tonelessly, and stuffed the tent into Drago’s pack.
Two nights later, sleeping in their tent pitched in the western foothills of the Rhaetian hills, the girl also reached out to Drago.
She was tiny, frail, helpless. Winds of demonic intent buffeted her, pushing her closer and closer to the razor edge of an infinite cliff, and she wailed and cried, Help me! Help me! Mama? Mama?
Even caught as he was in his dream, Drago felt tears slide down his cheek, and he understood Faraday’s desperation to reach the girl. Indeed, he could feel Faraday within the dream. She was somewhere in the darkness that surrounded the girl, and Drago could feel her reaching out, reaching out, but never quite reaching the child.
He opened his mouth to call out to the girl that they would reach her soon, very soon, be calm, hold on, we’re almost there…when suddenly he felt another presence within the dream.
Something dark and loathsome, something heavy and cruel, and something much, much closer to the girl than either he or Faraday.
He turned his attention back to the girl. She was silent now, terrified, her eyes jerking about the darkness, trying to see what it was that approached. She was crouched protectively about something, but Drago could not quite make it out. The child’s eyes jerked to her left, focusing on something moving towards her.
Drago looked, and cried out. A gigantic figure loomed out of the blackness, a man several handspans taller than any man Drago had ever seen before, and encased entirely in black armour.
In his mailed hand he held a gleaming, wicked knife.
A kitchen knife.
The girl hiccupped in terror, and almost choked on a sob that wrenched up from deep within her.
Drago could hear Faraday screaming, but he could not see her, and he could not free himself from the dream, nor could he move to aid her.
The black armoured man stepped to the girl’s side—
Run, run, run! Drago screamed at her, but she was so stricken with terror she could not move.
—and seized the girl’s glossy brown curls in his left hand, jerking her head back to expose the slim whiteness of her throat.
Then the knife slashed through the air, and all Drago could see and taste and feel was the thick redness of life pouring forth from the girl’s throat, and—
He jerked awake, sitting upright and staring about wildly. Beside him Faraday was screaming in her sleep, throwing herself from side to side, her hands reaching up and groping uselessly into the air above her.
Drago heaved in a great breath, orientating himself out of the dream, and turned to Faraday. He lifted a hand, intending to wake her from the nightmare, when her eyes flew open. She stared at Drago, and then, before he could stop her, she leapt to her feet, dived through the tent flap, and ran outside.
Into the terror of the night.
“No!” Drago screamed and, without any thought, ran after her.
He felt the cold fingers of the Demonic terror intrude into his mind as soon as he left the safety of the tent. Faraday was a pale shape struggling on the ground several paces away, the wind whipping her hair about, her hands groping at the ground about her.
She was screaming uncontrollably.
Drago knew that madness was only an instant away, and he knew it had already claimed Faraday, but all he could think of was that he had to reach her, that somehow he needed to be with her before he lost his own mind completely.
The cold fingers dug deeper and more agonisingly into his mind, and Drago screamed and threw himself on Faraday’s str
uggling body.
In her fright and horror she instinctively hit him, and Drago caught at her hands, rolling himself atop her and pinning her hands down to the ground.
“Faraday!” he yelled above the storm of madness about them. “Faraday, it is only me! Drago! Please, be still, please…please…”
She ceased to struggle and stared at his face a handspan above hers, and suddenly Drago realised that he stared into the eyes of a woman who was terrified beyond measure…
…but sane.
“Faraday?” he whispered. “Faraday?”
The cold fingers of terror continued to probe at his mind, but Drago slowly realised that although they probed and probed—and stung horribly in that probing—they could not enter.
His mind was still his.
As was Faraday’s.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why are we safe?”
He laughed softly, not caring that the fingers still pushed and prodded at his mind, but revelling in his—and her—strange immunity.
The Demons could not touch them.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back. “And I do not particularly care why.”
At that moment, staring into each other’s eyes, both forgot the girl and her terrified cries for help, as they forgot the winds of terror howling about them and the thick tendrils of grey miasma that clung to their clothes and hair.
Very, very slowly Drago lowered his head and kissed Faraday.
She closed her eyes, accepting his kiss, and then from nowhere came the memory of Drago swearing that nothing, nothing, was to get in the way of his determination to save the land, and from that memory her mind leapt back forty years to the moment when Axis stood before her in Gorgrael’s chamber and lifted not a finger to save her so that he, too, might save Tencendor.
She twisted her head away.
“No!”
Drago did not protest. He lifted himself from her and stood, holding a hand to help her rise.
Reluctantly she accepted his aid.
“Why?” she repeated. “Why aren’t we mad?”
Drago stared about him. The night landscape seemed to be in the grips of a fatal insanity.
The air itself was alive, twisting and writhing and roping under the Demon Rox’s influence. A small rabbit, caught outside its burrow, was winding and contorting in a dance of madness, chewing at its own paws and dribbling thick saliva down the matted fur of its chest. Somewhere a dog howled and screamed, and then gurgled into quietness.
And yet here he and Faraday stood, their minds aching from the insistent probing of the Demon, and yet safe.
Why?
Why?
Slowly Drago turned his face to the east.
Far away Rox turned and stared across the western Skarabost Plains. There was something wrong. Something…different.
He sent his senses reeling out across the land.
There! A man and a woman, standing close together in the night, their minds invulnerable.
The man was staring at him, as if he could somehow see him so far to the east.
Who? Who?
Why? Why? Why?
Slowly Rox turned his eyes back to his east. There the StarSon was, walking into the dark trap, so who was this to the west? Who? Who?
Why?
He sent a message screaming through the night to the Hawkchilds: It seems we have a stray magician or two to the west. Find them. Find out why they can resist us. And then kill them.
22
Arrival at the Minaret Peaks
They arrived in Arcen by late afternoon the next day. The mayor greeted them enthusiastically, begging for news, hope, anything…
“I am sorry,” StarDrifter said. “We know little, but what we do we would be happy to share. Perhaps over dinner…?”
The mayor apologised, embarrassed at his lack of civility, and bustled StarDrifter and Zenith into his townhouse. His servants laid out a good meal, and the mayor and his wife were pleasant and entertaining conversationalists, but StarDrifter and Zenith spent the time far more aware of each other than of the mayor.
“You must be tired!” the mayor eventually declared, as his guests lapsed once more into silence. He clapped his hands. “Let my servants show you to your rooms.”
They had separate but adjoining rooms, and Zenith was not surprised to hear the gentle knock at her door after an hour.
“Come in,” she called softly.
“I missed you,” StarDrifter said as he closed the door behind him. “Even the feather bed is not enough compensation for the lack of your company.”
Zenith smiled awkwardly. This was so strange, so uncomfortable. She felt as if he thought she should just invite him straight into her bed, she knew that was what he wanted, and maybe she should do that, but—
“I just came to say goodnight, Zenith,” StarDrifter said, watching the play of emotions over her face.
She nodded, relaxed, then smiled. “Goodnight, StarDrifter.”
Then, suddenly bold, she walked up to him, put her hands on his chest—his skin was so warm!—and kissed his mouth softly. She leaned back slightly, but she did not step back, and she did not take her hands from his chest.
Feeling certain that the time for hesitancy was past, StarDrifter slid his hands into her hair, pulled her close, and kissed her again. She tensed slightly, but did not pull back, and so StarDrifter held her tight against his body, and let both hands and mouth grow bolder.
More than anything else Zenith wanted to be able to accept StarDrifter as a lover—it was why she’d been bold enough to kiss him—but now she fought to keep still as unwelcome images tumbled through her mind. StarDrifter gently chiding her when she was a child, and holding on to her chubby arms as she learned to walk. WolfStar’s harsh kisses, the scrape of teeth and rasp of tongue against her neck. StarDrifter rescuing her from the cliff face, and telling her he’d always be there to catch her. WolfStar’s repulsive rape, feeling him force himself inside her body—
She pulled back.
“I won’t hurt you,” StarDrifter said. “I won’t.”
“I know,” she whispered, feeling even more the failure. “I know you won’t…but…”
“But?”
“But it just doesn’t feel right,” she said.
StarDrifter reached out a hand and stroked her cheek. “I can wait,” he said, planted an undemanding kiss on her forehead, and walked from the room.
Zenith stared at the door, then turned and looked at the bed.
A tear slowly ran down one cheek.
Two days later, Zenith and StarDrifter arrived at the colonnades and spires of the Icarii city nestled in the forests and ridges of the Minaret Peaks.
What they found shocked them.
To avoid the deadly miasma of the Demons, they’d had to approach via the forest paths rather than drop down from the sky—the infinitely more preferable way for any Icarii to approach the city. They initially assumed that the sense of gloom they experienced as they approached was due to their restricted flight underneath the trees. But the instant they’d alighted before the entrance to the Talon’s palace they had to reassess their initial assumption.
“Why is it so dark?” Zenith said, drawing her wings in close against her back and hugging her arms about her.
StarDrifter hesitated before answering.
“I should have expected this,” he murmured, and Zenith looked at him.
“Expected what? Why?”
In answer StarDrifter took her by the elbow and led her under the great pink stone archway. A long corridor stretched before them, and Zenith frowned. In previous visits she remembered this corridor as glowing with soft light, and pleasantly warm.
Now rank torches sputtered fitfully down its length, and chill air swept out to envelop them.
The corridor was empty of all life. Where the guards? Where the always hovering servants ready to provide a welcome for unexpected guests?
StarDrifter stood and stared, and felt an inexpressible sadne
ss sweep over him. He knew what was wrong, but because he hadn’t thought through the full implications of the Demons’ effects on the daily lives of the Icarii, he’d not been prepared for this sight.
“StarDrifter?” Zenith said, and he turned and half-smiled reassuringly at her. She was unsure, and nervous, and StarDrifter’s heart went out to her. He ran his hand softly along her arm and gently disengaged one of her hands from her tightly-crossed arms and cradled it in his own.
“There has always been so much we took for granted,” he said. “So much.”
He sighed and looked back down the corridor. “Why no light? No warmth? Because for thousands of years the Icarii have relied on their Enchanters to weave light and warmth from the Star Dance.”
“Oh,” Zenith said, and then shivered. “This place feels like a tomb.”
“It might well become one,” StarDrifter said. “Come, let us find a friendly face.”
As they walked through the outer corridors and halls, StarDrifter contemplated the potential ruin of Icarii life with sadness and, he was surprised to realise, more than a little cynicism. For too long, perhaps, no Icarii had ever soiled his or her hands with agricultural pursuits, for had they not always had Enchanters who could coax the most delicious of foods into existence with merely a breath of Song? No Icarii had ever chopped wood, nor lugged it about the corridors of Talon Spike or their Minaret Peaks, nor had they spent their mornings choking as they cleaned out their ash-filled hearths; always there had been enchantment to provide them with clean glowing braziers. No Icarii had ever scorched his or her hand on a hot pot, or a wayward candle, or cursed the hours spent peeling vegetables in a cold kitchen. Their lives had been spent in pleasurable pursuits, whether physical sports and games, challenging intellectual conundrums or the ever-appealing pursuit of love.
Now enchantment had disappeared from their lives, and the Icarii were obviously finding it hard to cope with the most simple demands of daily life.
As they walked down the cold corridor, StarDrifter’s thoughts drifted from the Icarii’s ever-appealing pursuit of love to his own problems with Zenith. He glanced at her walking quiet at his side. Since Arcen, StarDrifter had been careful not to scare Zenith by pushing her on the issue of their relationship. He hadn’t realised how badly Zenith had been scarred by WolfStar’s rape, but now that he did know, StarDrifter was determined to give Zenith the time and space she needed. She loved him, she’d admitted that, and there was no Axis lurking in the wings to steal this woman from him, and so, somewhat uncharacteristically, StarDrifter was prepared to bide his time.
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