Sinner (10 page)

“Do they pose a danger to Tencendor?” Caelum asked.

“No, they do not. They yearn for my blood, but I am here and they are lost beyond the Star Gate. As far as I am concerned, that is the way it will stay.”

Isfrael shifted irritably. “Then why do we hear their voices now, and never before?”

WolfStar shrugged, not willing to take his eyes from Zenith. “They drift, lost. It is not surprising that they would eventually drift slightly closer to the Star Gate than they had been previously.”

“Should we help them come home?” FreeFall asked.

His question was enough to make WolfStar drag his eyes away from Zenith. “No! No, we cannot do that!”

“And why not, WolfStar?” FreeFall’s voice was very tight.

WolfStar took a deep breath. “They have changed. Being thrown through the Star Gate as they were, alive, terrified, into a cosmos to drift for thousands of years, has altered them. They are not what they were. If they
were
to come through, then yes, I would fear. Please, believe me in this.”

No-one in the room noticed Drago’s eyes narrow.

“But you said there was
no
danger,” Caelum said.

“As long as they remain beyond the Star Gate,” WolfStar replied testily. “And I can see no way they can step through.”

“
You
could,” Caelum reminded him. “You came back.”

“Yes, I came back, but I went through under very different circumstances,” WolfStar explained, unwilling to disclose what it was that had helped him back. It wouldn’t help the children, would it? “I was a powerful and fully trained Enchanter when I went through. I came back, but they
will not.
They do not have the skills, and they do not have the power. Believe me. They will never come back. In time the interstellar tides will carry them far away from the Star Gate. In a week or two their voices will be gone.”

Caelum stared at WolfStar a moment longer, then he turned to SpikeFeather.

“My friend, get you to the Star Gate and keep watch with Orr. If those voices come closer, if
anything
happens, then let me know.”

SpikeFeather nodded, and slipped from the room.

WolfStar raised his eyes above the gathered heads and looked at WingRidge CurlClaw.

A
t some point, when people had grouped into ones and twos to discuss WolfStar’s words, the Enchanter himself had disappeared. Zenith, who’d made sure she kept a close eye on him, had no idea how he had done it. He’d been close to the fireplace, but she could have sworn he had not stepped back into it. Neither had he used any Song of Movement, because she would have felt it had he done so.

He was there one heartbeat, gone the next.

And Zenith had allowed herself to breathe a little more easily.

Of the others, Drago had been the next to leave, his exit far more noticeable. He’d pushed bluntly past those in his way and stalked from the room, every eye following him.

Zenith felt for Drago, and wished she’d had the courage Zared showed in leaping to his defence when RiverStar’s cruel tongue had been working its damage. Zenith had felt so ashamed that she’d later made the effort to join in the conversation, even asking WolfStar a question.

He’d stared at her, but this time there had been nothing but the stare, nothing but the roiling and yet unreadable emotion in his eyes.

Once Drago had gone, the rest of the group had been fairly quick to break up. There was much to be discussed and debated in the privacy of individual chambers, and even breakfasts to be had, for the initial shock of WolfStar’s appearance, and then his news, had long gone, and stomachs were now complaining.

Most of the servants within Sigholt, as well as the heads of the Five and their advisers, were busy with preparations for Council, which was to commence the next morning, so Zenith spent most of the day with Leagh. She felt restless, and useless in the current hive of activity, and Leagh was always comfortable company. Zenith told Leagh all that had happened in Caelum’s chambers, for she thought the woman had as much right to know as Askam or Zared, and then she asked what had transpired between her and Zared the night previously.

“Oh, Zenith! I saw more of him last night than I swear I have in the past four years. Thank you,
thank you!
”

Leagh’s eyes had glimmered with emotion, and Zenith had to fight back the tears herself.

Having passed the evening meal with Leagh, Zenith wandered back to her own chamber, but could not settle. Every time a drape moved in a draft, or a shadow flickered, Zenith jumped, thinking it was WolfStar.

She was sure he would come after her –

Why use that phraseology?

– why, she could not tell. But something in his touch, something in his eyes…he wanted something from her. But what? Surely it was not lust, for what WolfStar had shown her was not the wantonness he’d displayed with RiverStar.

But something else.

Something…deeper.

But that was ridiculous. She’d never met him, she was sure. WolfStar had disappeared long years before she’d even been born. Why should he spare her even a passing thought? She was nothing in the power games and mysteries currently being played out in Tencendor.

The images – memories? – that had flooded Zenith’s mind when WolfStar touched her cheek now came back and assailed her again, though with less force this time. She’d seen the inside of the Dome of Stars – but that was the province only of the First Priestess of the Temple, and Zenith had never been there. She’d seen inside that peasant hut, seen the angry, nameless man advance on her, murder in his eyes – but neither had she seen hut nor man previously. And the child…the child. Who?

Ah! Zenith shook herself. She would go mad left alone in this room to think!

She wondered again about Drago, how he felt after enduring his own personal trauma that morning, and determined to find him.

She found him, as she thought she would, in the kitchens.

RiverStar goaded Drago about affairs with the kitchen girls, but Zenith knew the real reason Drago spent so much time in the kitchens of Sigholt.

She’d discovered his secret one night seven years ago when she could not sleep and had thought to heat herself a glass of warm milk. She’d come in the kitchen doors, and then halted, astounded.

Drago had been standing at one of the work tables, dicing a huge mound of vegetables.

For some obscure reason, Drago loved to cook. He spent an hour or two down here most days, and longer if he was particularly upset over something. It was no mystery to Zenith that he would be here now.

This late at night the fires were damped down, and the staff had long gone to bed. Even so, the air was still warm, and the great metal ranges against the far wall radiated a comforting glow.

Drago was standing at a table before one of the ranges, several bowls before him, the tabletop strewn with flour and pieces of discarded meat.

“Drago?”

His head whipped up and a bowl rattled as he jumped. “What is it?”

Zenith walked further into the room. “I thought you might like to talk about this morning.”

Her brother dropped his eyes and kneaded some dough in a bowl, unspeaking.

Zenith walked over to the range, keeping her wings carefully tucked away but rubbing her hands before its warmth. “What did you think about WolfStar?”

Drago did not answer.

Now Zenith hugged her arms to herself, her eyes unfocused. “He scares me, Drago. I did not like the way he looked at me. The way he touched me.”

“I am sure there are some dozen or more people within Sigholt today who could say they do not like the way WolfStar looks at them.” He still had not raised his eyes from the bowl.

Zenith studied Drago carefully. He was kneading dough as if he wanted to bruise it.

“Drago…” She hesitated, but thought it needed to be discussed. “How did it make you feel to learn the name of WolfStar’s son?”

Drago lifted the mass of dough out of the bowl and slammed it down on the table, sending flour drifting in a cloud about him. He lifted his eyes and stared at Zenith.

“If he did not lie – and from the tales we’ve heard we know how WolfStar can lie – then all I can say is that
DragonStar is a cursed name. Both of us condemned to our different deaths.”

“Drago –”

“Except that I think WolfStar’s son died far more gently than I!” He started to roll the dough back and forth, back and forth.

“Drago –”

“I do not want to talk about it!” He chopped the dough in two with the side of his hand, played at shaping one of the pieces into a pie crust, then suddenly threw it into a corner of the kitchen with all the strength he could.

“
I do not want to talk about it!
”

“Damn you, Drago! You must talk sometime!”

Drago rounded on her. “Look at you, Zenith! You are beautiful, vital, and you revel in your Enchanter powers. You have an aeon to live. Look at
me!
”

His fingers pinched at his body, then his face. “
Look
at me! I am wrinkling and ageing. I get out of breath climbing the stairs to the roof. All the magic
I
can perform is getting this…this…this arse-blasted lump of pastry to rise in the oven! And all I ever hear about this cursed Keep is how vile I am, how much air is wasted on my breath, and how I can never be trusted or loved or relied upon!”

Unable to bear her brother’s pain, Zenith lowered her eyes and toyed with the handle of a pot on the range hotplate. She could not blame Drago for feeling angry or resentful. No-one in their family seemed willing to harbour a single positive thought for the man or to consider that perhaps he had been punished enough. No-one seemed to entertain the idea that Drago might be so consumed by bitterness that his very punishment might drive him to ill-considered action.

And no-one save she had ever seemed to think through the implications of what Azhure had done to
him. Icarii babies were very different from human babies in that they were completely aware from the moment of their birth and, indeed, many months before it. All Icarii memories stretched back to events pre-birth. But when Drago was only a few months old, Azhure had stripped him of his Icarii heritage, and had plunged his mind into the dim murkiness of human infancy. Drago’s memories could not date from anything earlier than his second or third year of life.

Drago would have no memory of the events that had seen him so cruelly punished. He was largely reviled, mistrusted, unloved and, above all, condemned to a life of only some three or four score of years, when he could have expected hundreds at least,
for a crime he could not remember!

No-one cared about how Drago might be feeling or what kind of man lay buried beneath all the years of built-up bitterness. Zenith alone of the immediate family rather liked Drago; perhaps because she’d not yet been conceived when he had arranged Caelum’s kidnapping. Drago had a sharp wit and was, in odd, unexpected moments, kind and thoughtful.

He is trapped here in Sigholt, Zenith realised suddenly. Trapped by
other
people’s memories of what he did as a child.

As I am trapped by another’s memories.

Zenith went ice cold. Was that what it was? Why she had such unexplained memories invading her mind?
Were they someone else’s? But whose?

“Perhaps we should both leave Sigholt for a while,” she said softly.

“What?” Drago had given up his efforts at cooking and was piling bowls into the sink with loud, angry rattles.

“Drago, how long is it since you left Sigholt?” Zenith moved forward but stopped as Drago’s face tightened.
“I don’t think you’ve left in at least eight years. Drago…
why?
”

He stared at her, not answering.

“There is nothing keeping either of us here…why don’t we visit StarDrifter? Escape the tensions in this Keep?”

“Why should
you
want to leave?”

Why indeed? Zenith almost said, “Because of WolfStar”, but stopped, knowing she couldn’t explain to Drago, let alone herself, her deep-seated fright of the Enchanter, her unsettling visions, or her recurring gaps in consciousness.

“Because there is a world of purpose out there,” she said eventually, “and because neither of us has a purpose in here.”

“If I have no purpose it is because my life has been made deliberately purposeless! I am not trusted enough to be given the responsibility of a purpose.”

“Then why
not
leave, Drago? StarDrifter would enjoy seeing both of us.”

He looked at her, his violet eyes soft, almost gentle in this light, and she knew he was remembering the image of StarDrifter she had conjured up, and the happy months they had spent on the Island of Mist and Memory as children.

“I have no purpose
anywhere
,” he finally said, his voice weary with resignation. “Wherever I go I will always be the vile traitor.”

“You can remake your life if you leave Sigholt. Please, Drago.”

He seized her shoulders, and Zenith was astounded to see tears in his eyes. “I can never escape, Zenith!
Never!
Word would spread that Axis’ untrustworthy and evil son Drago is travelling the land. Doors everywhere would be closed to me. I have no life here in Sigholt, but I would have no life anywhere. Now, will you leave me alone?”

And he strode from the kitchen.

E
ven more troubled now, Zenith climbed to the rooftop of Sigholt. She stood and watched the lights shut out one by one in the town of Lakesview on the other side of the lake. She let the warm breeze caress her, and briefly contemplated a flight over the lake and hills. But she was tired, her mind full of problems, and she preferred just to lean over the wall of the roof and let the view soothe her.

Determined not to think of WolfStar, or Zared and Leagh’s troubles, or even of Drago, Zenith fixed her thoughts on RiverStar’s claim to have found a new lover. And one she might wed? Zenith almost laughed aloud. Maybe her lover considered marrying RiverStar, but Zenith doubted seriously that her sister would ever go that far. She enjoyed her freedoms too much to discard them for fidelity.

Unless…unless her lover were SunSoar. A SunSoar might well tempt RiverStar, but who was available to her here in Sigholt if not first blood?

Zenith frowned. FreeFall…but FreeFall was impossible. He and his wife EvenSong were virtually inseparable, and EvenSong was here with him. Besides,
who could ever think of FreeFall and RiverStar…no, that was laughable. Surely.

And WolfStar. WolfStar was here – how much longer had he been about before he made his presence known? His penchant for disguises was legendary. If he was RiverStar’s new lover, had he been coming to her in the guise of a stableboy, or himself?

No, no, not WolfStar. Zenith did not want to think of him at all.

Although remember the way he’d kissed RiverStar this morning; was that boldness, or familiarity?

Isfrael! Zenith forced her mind as far from WolfStar as she could. Was Isfrael first blood? She supposed he was, for he and RiverStar shared a SunSoar father. But then Isfrael had changed so much since he’d become Mage-King of the Avar that it was as if his SunSoar link was gone.

Although he still had the blood to satisfy RiverStar, if indeed it were him.

No, surely not Isfrael. He had only been here since this morning…hadn’t he? When
had
Isfrael arrived?

“Oh, for the sweet Stars’ sakes,” Zenith murmured. “RiverStar is probably just making it all up, anyway.”

She looked down to the far courtyard, her Enchanter vision having no trouble picking out every detail in the thick night shadow. A guard moved from barrack to gate, another checked the doors to the weapons room off the main building.

A movement. Drago. Zenith sharpened her vision, then smiled gently, her eyes soft. He was feeding scraps of meat to the courtyard cats. Five or six had gathered, mewling about his legs, reaching up to pat his knees with their paws. He laughed, and squatted down to scratch them, their heads butting against his arms and chest affectionately.

Zenith had never realised he liked cats so much – nor that they so obviously adored him. All the food was gone, but still they stayed, winding about him. Her face softened yet more. Someone besides herself in this great Keep liked the man.

Drago stood up, extracted himself from the cats, and stepped back inside.

Zenith watched for a few more minutes, but he did not reappear. She sighed, and moved to the parapets that overlooked the lake, resting her elbows on the wall, her chin in her hands, lost in thought.

Sigholt was now completely quiet. The dogs were curled in sleep, the guards seemed to have turned to stone at their posts.

Silence and stillness reigned.

Zenith felt as if she had been transported to another world. Even the breeze had disappeared.

Her wings relaxed and drifted over the flagstones behind her. She sank into a greater lethargy, leaning her full weight on the wall, watching the waves ripple across the moonlit Lake of Life.

Zenith did not notice the tiniest of movements in the air about her, nor catch the enchantment that rippled over the rooftop.

“I find it not strange that I have discovered you atop Sigholt,” WolfStar said, and she whirled around, her heart pounding.

He stood relaxed and easy, his wings drooping behind him in the traditional Icarii gesture of goodwill. “For so once StarDrifter found Rivkah, and loved her, and so Axis once found Azhure, and loved her, too. No, do not lift off. Stay and talk to me, Zenith. You have nothing to fear.”

Then why does my heart race so, Zenith thought, and my breast heave with such fright? She steadied herself,
although her eyes flickered about, seeking the reassurance of another person close by.

There was no-one save her and WolfStar.

A movement above her, against the Dome.

Zenith gasped, her eyes involuntarily jerking upwards. There was nothing there save the swirling stars. Nothing.

“Do you remember, sweet Zenith,” WolfStar said very softly, “when last you saw me? Do you remember that night so long ago?”

A shadow spiralling down from the roof of the Dome.

“No,” Zenith whispered, grabbing at the parapets for support. “No! We have never met before this morning!”

Something was happening. The night air of Sigholt was swirling about her, and every few heartbeats it seemed to solidify until she felt as if she were inside…inside an empty building…a dome.

“No!”

“Zenith, do not fear. You are only remembering. Accept.”

WolfStar walked slowly towards her, and as he did so he lifted his hand in the demanding gesture of seduction that male Enchanters used to will women to their bed.

“
No!
” She could not move, and her mind voice seemed to have vanished. She was trapped, trapped…he was too powerful…

“Yes! Zenith…here…let me remind you.”

He was close now, gathering her stiff body in his arms, and Zenith struggled uselessly, wondering if he was intent on rape.

She felt his arms about her, and it was good.

No, no it
wasn’t
good! Yet something seemed to have taken possession of her, some part of her mind willed her to cease resisting and let WolfStar slide her to the floor, some part of her was saying…
you have bedded with him previously.

No! She twisted her head away but WolfStar was too powerful for her, both his body and his power were too strong, and she felt his mouth close over hers…

And something happened. Something broke free, something
struggled
free within her. Memories, voices, scents, laughter not her own crowded her mind. Faces, experiences, songs she’d never seen or heard before leaped out of hiding. A desire she’d never felt flooded her body. She…

felt him enter her body, move within her, and she had never believed it could feel this good, had never believed that such intimacy could engender such feeling, and…

No! No, what was wrong with her? His mouth was on hers, that was all. All? She could not escape it, she could not escape him, she…

twisted under him, encouraging him with body and voice, willing him on to even greater effort, willing him to merge so completely with her body and soul that they would indeed become one and not just two bodies briefly conjoined in an act designed only for child engendering.

Zenith tore her mouth from his. “No!” Broke away from him, yet even as she stumbled five or six paces away from him she felt…

the fire that he had seeded in her womb explode into new life and…

She screamed and fell to the floor, doubling over, clutching at her belly. Her wings beat futilely behind her, and almost knocked WolfStar over as he leaned down and grabbed her, holding her tightly against him, trying to stifle her sobs.

“Zenith, your mother was wrong not to tell you this before –”

“Tell me
what?
”

“That you were born to be my lover, Zenith. Meant for no-one else. Why else are you still a virgin at your
age? Here I am, Zenith. Accept me. Zenith, you love me…accept me.”

And the dreadful thing was Zenith could
feel
that love, could remember the nights she had lain in her lonely bed, wishing he would return to her, crying as the night lightened to dawn and he had not appeared. She could remember years spent loving him, and she could remember months spent watching her belly swell with his child.

“
No!
” she shouted once more, and lunged from his arms, using both limbs and wings. Her hip struck the sharp edge of the parapet over the courtyard, and she cried out, her arms flailing. WolfStar lunged for her, but he was too late, and Zenith tumbled over the edge of the roof, gaining control of her wings only within feet of the ground and landing roughly enough to scrape hands and knees.

Help me! Help me!

And suddenly, Drago was there.

“Oh, Stars!” he cried, and fell to his knees, gathering her in his arms. Two guards from the gate had started to run towards them, but Drago waved them back. “A slip! Nothing more!”

Then, her sobbing face pressed into his chest, he held her tight, rocking her back and forth. “Zenith, what is it? What is it?”

Zenith clung to her brother, sobbing, letting his closeness and warmth and touch drive away her memories and the feel of WolfStar.

In the rectangle of light behind Drago another figure appeared. “Zenith!”

Caelum.

“Zenith! Drago, what have you done to her?
Let her go!
”

“Caelum,” Zenith sobbed, trying to say it was alright, that Drago was helping, not hurting, but the words would
not come, and Caelum reached down and literally tore her from Drago’s arms.

“Get you gone from here!” Caelum snarled at Drago, who had backed away, his eyes swinging between Caelum’s face and Zenith, now clinging to her eldest brother.

“I was only helping –” he began, but Caelum reached out with his power and cut off Drago’s words.

“I do not want to hear your excuses!
Get you gone from here!
”

Drago’s face twisted, trying to form words, but Caelum would not let them come, and with a gesture of half rage, half frustration, he disappeared inside the kitchen door.

“Sweetheart,” Caelum whispered, gathering Zenith more tightly into his arms, and then the music of a Song of Movement rippled about them, and they disappeared from the courtyard.

She came to her senses, still wrapped in Caelum’s arms, but now sitting on one of the commodious couches in the inner private chamber of his apartments.

“Where’s Drago?” she said, sniffing and wiping her nose with a cloth Caelum handed her.

“He fled. Did he push you?”

“No! No, I stumbled from the rooftop. WolfStar…WolfStar was there.”

“Ah! WolfStar! He is truly the bane of our lives. Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Zenith said, but she spoke so hesitatingly that Caelum took her shoulders and pushed her back a little so he could see her face.

“He did,” he said slowly. “He did hurt you. How?”

Zenith probably would have confessed to the first person who showed her kindness, be it Caelum or
unknown dairy maid. Words came tumbling out of her mouth.

“WolfStar…on the roof…kissed me…thoughts, images, not mine…crowded me…frightened me.”

Caelum pulled her close again, stroking her hair. “Go on.” His eyes were distant.

Zenith gripped her hands together in an effort to stop them shaking. “He appeared suddenly, and that surprised me, but then I felt as if I was in a…chamber of some kind. The Dome of the Moon. It was very dark. I felt there was something there, clinging to the roof. It frightened me, terrified me, I was
there,
I
saw
that place – and yet I have never been inside it in my life!”

She raised her head, enough to look Caelum in the eyes. “I felt as though I was someone else. Memories crowded my mind. Memories that were not mine! Oh, Caelum…!”

And in another flood she told him of the lost hours and the nightmares and the fears. Who was this who crowded her mind, and who sometimes took such possession of her that she could not remember what she had done? Who?

“Caelum, I do not know what to think, what to do!”

“Hush,” Caelum said, holding her tight, stroking her hair, her back, kissing the crown of her head. “Hush.”

Thoughts and memories crowded his own mind, but they were not of someone else’s making. He remembered the time, nine years ago, when Axis and Azhure had handed control of Tencendor over to him. True, there had been a glittering ceremony on the shores of Grail Lake, but there had been a far more private afternoon, when his parents had handed into his keeping some of the most precious items of their lives.

The Rainbow Sceptre, now carefully secreted within Sigholt.

The Wolven Bow, for Azhure had said she no longer needed to ride to the hunt.

The enchanted quiver of arrows, which never ran out.

A Moonwildflower.

And a letter. A letter addressed to Azhure, and written by her long dead mother, Niah.

No-one save Azhure could remember Niah, for she had died when Azhure was only about six. Niah had been the First Priestess on the Island of Mist and Memory when one night WolfStar had appeared to her, lain with her, and got Azhure upon her.

Within seven years Niah was dead, burned alive at the hands of her Plough-Keeper husband, Hagen, in the cursed village of Smyrton. But she had left Azhure a letter, and when Azhure had given it to Caelum she’d told him that one day he must hand it to Zenith.

“You will know when, Caelum. You will know the moment.”

And this
was
the moment. Trembling, for he had never read the letter, and did not know what was in it, Caelum gently disengaged himself, and left the room.

Zenith sat up straight, dried her eyes, and shook her hair out, grateful for the support and love Caelum had shown her, but wishing she could have explained about Drago.

Caelum was back within a few minutes, holding an envelope in his hands.

“Caelum. Drago was only –”

“Hush. Let us not speak of him, Zenith. Read this. Maybe it will help you understand.”

Puzzled, Zenith took the letter. Across the envelope there was a word scratched in bold ink.
Azhure.