Sinner (20 page)

The doe glanced once more at the sack, trembled, then bent her attention back to Zenith.

She is losing her battle. She descends towards madness. This place is too Niah-strong for her already weakened and saddened state.

The voice, so soft and gentle, whispered through Drago’s mind, and he stifled a cry.

“M’Lady?” the Goodwife said. “Isn’t there something you can do? My herbs cannot mend this malady.”

How can I evict this presence that torments her so?
The doe lowered her nose to Zenith’s forehead.
She fights, and it fights within her, and I can see no help, no solution.

“WolfStar found her, and raped her,” Drago put in suddenly, wanting them to know all the horror.

“And what did you do as WolfStar raped her?” the Goodwife asked.

“I…I did not know what was happening. She’d run from camp. I did not know until it was too late.”

The Goodwife lowered her eyes contemptuously.

Was he to be blamed for
all
Tencendor’s woes, Drago wondered, then turned to the doe.

“Help her, please,” he said, and extended a hand towards her.

The doe flinched, and he dropped it.

I can do nothing,
she said.

“I can do nothing,” the Goodwife echoed.

“But what can
I
do? I can’t leave her here! I –”

“Where do you go?” the Goodwife asked. “What sin do you plan next?”

“I plan to save my own life!” Drago shouted. “Is that such a sin?”

He took a huge breath, trying to bring his anger under control. “She wanted to go to the Island of Mist and Memory. To StarDrifter.”

StarDrifter?

“He said once…he said he would always be there to catch her.”

Ah.
The doe tilted her head and considered Drago.
Perhaps I can summon StarDrifter here. Zenith will never survive the trip to the Isle.

Drago hesitated, then leaned down and touched Zenith’s cheek a last time. He could do no more for her, and he knew that she was better left in the care of these two than struggling further south with him.

“Take care of her, please.” He let her weight fall into the arms of the Goodwife, picked up the sack, and stood up, retreating several paces.

Where are you going?

Where? Where? Drago didn’t know. He retreated another pace, the sack clutched tight to his chest.

Why that?
the doe asked sadly.

“I don’t know,” Drago muttered, staring at her. “I don’t know.”

It has its own purpose.

“It has no thought of its own!”

It seeks…it seeks a home.

“No!” Now Drago had reached the far edge of the grove.

Take it back.

“No!” Drago yelled one last time, staring frantically for a moment at Zenith, and then was gone.

A
fter his son defeated Gorgrael, StarDrifter had made his home on the Island of Mist and Memory. There he studied and dreamed, conducted the rites of Star worship, and was generally content. He lived on Temple Mount, establishing an academy for Icarii children with Enchanter powers, and teaching what he knew and what he’d come to understand. He had mellowed in the tranquillity of the island, and became more patient and serene, although StarDrifter did not fully realise this change in himself.

He did not lack for company, either. Although the population of the Mount itself had not grown appreciably over the past years, the Icarii had built themselves a spreading town about the foot of the mountain. From there, they could rise on the jungle thermals to the peak to attend rites, or just to come and absorb the power that washed about the great Temple of the Stars.

At first StarDrifter had visited his family in Sigholt once or twice a year, but as time had passed, and Axis and Azhure’s children grew into adulthood, his visits had become more infrequent, sometimes once every two years, more often longer. Axis and Azhure came to him on Temple
Mount now and then, but their visits had become rare since they had drifted more with their Star God companions; StarDrifter had not seen them in some three years.

He missed them, but he missed his grandchildren more, and every few weeks guilt made him vow to himself to go to Sigholt
this
Yuletide. But he somehow knew that Yuletide would come and go, and his grandchildren would remain unseen. Caelum was now too busy ruling Tencendor to leave, RiverStar too self-absorbed, Isfrael and Zenith had their own lives, and Drago…well, Drago had so little in common with the other SunSoars that he was the last person StarDrifter expected to visit the island.

All his grandchildren had spent time with StarDrifter when they were growing up. StarDrifter even missed Drago who, despite his outwardly sullen appearance, had a lively mind and had spent hours following StarDrifter about the complex, asking questions. StarDrifter missed them all…except RiverStar. He was glad she no longer came. StarDrifter had once promised himself that he would have Azhure’s eldest daughter if he could not have Azhure, but RiverStar had herself crept into his bed when she was thirteen, her hands knowing and bold, and StarDrifter had been so repelled by the experience that he had lost any desire for her.

StarDrifter was lonely, although he did not recognise it. He had let Rivkah go, and he had lost contact with his son and his grandchildren. Even FreeFall and his wife, EvenSong, StarDrifter’s daughter, were too busy to attend to him.

So this day he wandered the orchard above the Dome of the Stars, his wings fluttering out behind him, eyes half closed, his head lifted slightly to the sea breeze as it rushed over the cliffs, and he wondered why he felt so melancholy.

It was a warm day, and yet StarDrifter found his flesh creeping with a strange chill. He opened his eyes fully, and stood still, looking about.

There was something wrong.

A knot of nervousness twisted about in his belly. He had not felt anything like this for years…many years. What was it?

He turned about in a slow circle, his wings now half extended, ready for flight.

StarDrifter
…

That voice! He knew it, but could not place it. Who?

StarDrifter…

Calling, calling to him. Worried, but so far away. Who?

And then power hit him like a blast of turbulent wind. StarDrifter cried out, almost fell over, then managed to regain his balance. He looked about, not understanding. He was surrounded by vibrant, pulsing emerald light. So vibrant it lived, shadowing and shifting…

“Stars,” he whispered, and saw that one section of the emerald light was changing, reshaping so that it became a tunnel of swirling silver and emerald light, and at the end of this tunnel stood two women, one holding out her hand.

One was a pleasant-faced woman in late middle-age, dark brown hair greying and coiled loosely about her head. She was dressed in a soft pale blue robe, belted about with a rainbow-striped band. From her came most of this power.

The Mother. StarDrifter had never seen her personified, but he recognised her power from years of conducting joint rites with the Avar.

The other woman was Faraday. StarDrifter could not believe it. When had he last seen her? At Axis’ side in Carlon, smiling and cheerful, not yet knowing that Axis had betrayed her with Azhure.

She held out her hand, and she smiled. “StarDrifter.” Her voice came from very far away. “StarDrifter, I have need of you as you once had need of me. Will you aid me?”

“Gladly,” StarDrifter said without hesitation, and stepped into the spiralling tunnel.

He spread his wings to the power, letting it carry him towards the two women. He felt earth and stars rush by him, knowing it carried him a great distance, and when it finally let him go and he stepped into Niah’s Grove, he was not truly surprised.

There waited before him a doe and a peasant woman. Like Drago before him, StarDrifter knew instantly who these two represented. But his eyes were caught by the twisting, moaning figure between them.

“Zenith!” And with one great flap of his wings he was at their side, falling to his knees beside Zenith. “What’s wrong? What’s happened to her?”

“Drago,” the Goodwife began, and StarDrifter’s head snapped up at the name of his grandson, “told us her body and mind is tormented by Niah’s reborn soul. Zenith fights it.”

The Goodwife shrugged. “But m’Lady and I can do nothing for the poor sweet girl. The Niah-soul wins.”

Niah’s reborn soul? Azhure had once shown Niah’s letter to StarDrifter, and he knew what the Goodwife alluded to. Niah? In
Zenith?

He looked again at his granddaughter. She appeared unconscious, but was obviously in anguish. Her skin was pale and sweating, her muscles twitching, her breath jerking in her breast.

And why was she naked under this cloak, and with the marks of some assault upon her?

“The poor sweeting,” the Goodwife said. “Not only does she battle the dead soul within her, but her body and spirit were raped by WolfStar –”

StarDrifter gave a great cry and leapt to his feet.
WolfStar!
He had known that malevolent criminal would reappear some day. But to so harm Zenith? StarDrifter looked back at his granddaughter, and his stomach curdled in revulsion at the crime that had been visited upon her.

“Zenith,” he whispered, dropping to his knees before her again.

We cannot reach her…

“How did she come to be here?” StarDrifter asked harshly. “You said Drago was with her?”

“Her brother came with her, but has run off –”

What was going on here?

Drago was running from something. Something wrong at Sigholt.

“Drago was running from a misdeed, no doubt,” the Goodwife put in, folding her hands over her belly and pursing her mouth, but the doe continued.

Zenith was with him – we do not know why – and Drago left her with us, hoping we could help her.

“And was he a party to her rape?” StarDrifter asked.

“No, good sir, we do not think so,” the Goodwife answered. “But neither did he help her.”

Stars, but he should never have left those children alone for so long! Why hadn’t he visited?

They are not children any more, StarDrifter. All capable of choosing their own paths.

“Or fated,” StarDrifter, his thoughts returning to what fought for control of Zenith’s body and mind. Why Zenith? She had such a sweet and trusting nature – was that why she’d been chosen as a vessel for Niah’s rebirth?

Who
was
this on the ground before him? Had it always been Niah? Or was Zenith a separate entity? A different personality?

StarDrifter shook his head slightly, hoping to clear it. “Why call me? What can I do?”

Drago said that she wanted to go to you.

StarDrifter frowned. “Why?”

Because you once told Zenith that you would always be there to catch her.

Except I wasn’t, was I? StarDrifter thought. Should he take her? The island might be the worst place for Zenith if she was battling the reborn Niah.

But he had little choice, and, more importantly, neither did Zenith.

StarDrifter squatted down by his granddaughter and took her into his arms.

Strangely, she quietened a little as soon as he had gathered her against his breast.

“I’m here, Zenith,” he whispered, and stroked her hair.

Suddenly she stilled, her breathing eased, and her entire body relaxed.

And yet her stillness did not ease StarDrifter’s mind. Someone had won – but who?

“I will take her to the Island of Mist and Memory,” he said. “Pray to both earth and stars that I am doing the right thing.”

“
N
othing?” Caelum said. “
Nothing?
”

Crest-Leader FeatherFlight BrightWing’s expression did not change. “StarSon, we have sent scouts out to the feet of the Icescarp Alps, to the River Ichtar, and south as far as the Minaret Peaks. Nothing.”

Caelum sat down heavily at the table in the map-room.

“Askam?” He did not even look at the prince, for he knew in his bones what the man would report.

“Nothing, Caelum.” Askam spread his hands helplessly. “The patrols could not have scoured the Urqhart Hills more thoroughly if they’d done it on their hands and knees.”

Caelum sifted through a pile of loose papers on the table. “And these…reports from Jervois Landing, Severin, most of the smaller hamlets between here and Carlon – even Gorkenfort!
Nothing!
No-one has seen him.” Nor Zenith. Had WolfStar found her? Or was she hiding from their grandfather in some enchanted bolthole?

“Curse it!” Caelum sent the papers scattering across the table. “Where is he? Where could he have gone?”

Askam glanced at FeatherFlight. Caelum’s nerves were strung as tight as a fishing line with a whale on its hook – and no wonder. Drago had disappeared completely. How? And how was it he’d managed to evade searchers that ranged from the strongest Enchanters to the ablest trackers?

By rights Drago should not have been able to escape more than a league or two…
if he
had
left Sigholt!
Was someone aiding him? Who? Why?

“He could have managed to get to Minstrelsea,” Askam said slowly. “If he’s in there…”

Caelum looked up sharply. “Stars, Askam! I should have you as a full-time adviser. FeatherFlight! Send word to Isfrael that Drago may well be within his domain.”

FeatherFlight nodded, saluted, and left.

Caelum settled back in his chair. “Drago will never escape the eyes and ears Isfrael can call to his command. Askam, I thank you again…will you stay a week or two longer? I have need of a sharp mind about me at the moment.”

“As you will, StarSon.”

Caelum grinned at him. “And yet you fidget as if the most practised whore awaited you in your bed…what is it?”

Askam returned the smile. “Master Horrald has been waiting for me at weapons practice this past half an hour. By the time I get there he will have broiled up a nice temper.”

Caelum managed a laugh. Master Horrald was senior among the weapons masters at Sigholt – and not known for his sweet disposition. “Begone then, Askam, and ask Master Horrald not to cut you to ribbons, if only for my sake.”

Left alone in the map-room, Caelum leaned his head into his hand and sighed. This last week had been
distressful, and his nights had been filled with unsettling dreams of hunts that ran through forest and stars alike, and of huntsmen who ran down men, not animals.

It made him think for a moment…hunt. Could his mother’s hounds…? No, Azhure had told him a long time ago that the hounds could never be set to hunt mortals.

Caelum looked at his hands, twisting about the red-gold, diamond-encrusted ring on his right hand. It was not his father’s ring – Axis still wore that – but an exact duplicate.

And Axis had taught him how to use it properly.

Enchanters wielded power by manipulating threads of the Star Dance, the music the stars made as they danced through the universe. For each purpose, a Song. For countless generations Icarii Enchanters had painstakingly discovered perhaps a thousand Songs they could weave from the Star Dance, but Orr the Ferryman had shown Axis that all an Enchanter needed to do was think of the purpose, and the diamonds on his ring would rearrange themselves to show him the particular Song to sing.

“Show me a Song for scrying,” he whispered, and after an instant’s hesitation, the diamonds on his ring rearranged themselves into a new pattern.

Caelum thought about the music his ring showed him. It would be a powerful Song, requiring him to manipulate a dangerous amount of the Star Dance, but he was powerful himself, and he could manage it.

He ran the Song through his head, absorbing the power of the Star Dance that flooded him, and directed that power to his purpose.

Instantly the room before him faded, and Caelum saw the plains of Ichtar stretching away to the west of Sigholt.

“Find me Drago,” he whispered, and the view altered.
His vision swept north until it danced among the peaks of the Icescarp Alps, then east and south, skimming over the grey-green tops of the Avarinheim and Minstrelsea.

Caelum felt giddy and nauseated with the amount of power he was being forced to wield, but was determined to see it through.

“Drago,” he whispered, and the vision changed, and now he swept over the spires of the Minaret Peaks, now over Tare, now over Carlon.

“Drago!” he cried. “Find me Drago!”

He felt his body lurch, as if it had abruptly changed direction, and he saw the tranquil shores of the Island of Mist and Memory – there was a presence there…Zenith! Aha – so that is where she’d gone. Good.

But no Drago.

Caelum wondered if the Song was as lost as he. In desperation, he cried out one last time, now using Drago’s birth name, thinking the Song required that.

“Find me DragonStar!”

In the space of a heartbeat, the entire world altered…and Caelum panicked. Tencendor had disappeared. Now he was lost, lost in a black void, and in this void he could sense a presence so infinitely powerful that he understood he would die if it found him.

“StarSon?” it whispered. “StarSon?”

Caelum could feel it reaching out for him, rushing towards him as if it were a great wind.

“StarSon!”

“No,” Caelum whispered.

“You pitiful weakling, StarSon,” the voice cried, and Caelum could feel the being
rippling
towards him. “Let me
hunt
you, let me
impale
you, let me violate your corpse, let me –”

“
No!
” Caelum screamed, and with the last of his willpower broke his contact with the Star Dance.

The Song ceased, and Caelum opened his eyes to the familiar surroundings of the map-room. His chest was heaving, his body covered in sweat, his hands trembling.

“Stars,” Caelum whispered into the room, “was that
you
, Drago?”

That evening Caelum was visited by SpikeFeather TrueSong.

He appeared from nowhere, perhaps the door, but Caelum was not sure. The chamber had been empty when Caelum went to close the shutters at the window, yet SpikeFeather had been there when he turned back to the room.

“SpikeFeather!”

Caelum was unnerved by the birdman’s sudden appearance. SpikeFeather carried about him an aura of subtle power. Not Enchanter power, not anything any Enchanter had seen previously. Caelum assumed he’d absorbed it from Orr.

“StarSon.” SpikeFeather bowed his eye-catching red head. “Has there been any news of Drago?”

“I am surprised that you have heard of such excitement secreted down in the waterways, SpikeFeather. Drago was still here, and RiverStar still alive, when you left to rejoin Orr.”

“The waterways reflect many things, StarSon. And some of them have concerned the problems of Sigholt.”

“You do not know Drago’s whereabouts?”

“No, StarSon, I do not.”

“But surely you could –”

“There is nothing I can do, StarSon. Drago is not in the waterways – that is all I can tell you.”

Caelum sighed, and poured each of them a glass of wine. Stars knew he’d need it to sleep tonight. “Well, then, SpikeFeather. What news from the Star Gate?”

In the consternation surrounding RiverStar’s murder and Drago’s escape over the past week, Caelum had pushed to one side the strange tidings of the whispers beyond the Star Gate.

Now…now he wondered if they had anything to do with his frightening vision of this morning.

SpikeFeather sat down in a chair and sipped at his wine. “They still whisper and call, but they have come no closer. They seem to be holding their distance. Orr is tense, but he has sounded no alarm. StarSon, I would venture to advise that WolfStar was right. They pose no danger save to the over-curious mind who would be tempted to plunge after them.”

“Through the Star Gate?” Caelum laughed incredulously – and a little too loudly. The Star Gate disconcerted him. He had seen his father, and numerous other Enchanters, stand at its rim, enthralled by the Star Dance and the universe it contained, but he always felt dizzy if he stayed there more than a moment.

SpikeFeather watched him, then shrugged. “No doubt the issue of the children will become no more than a passing curiosity, StarSon.”

“I do hope you are right,” Caelum said, and abruptly stood to pour himself some more wine. “I do hope so.”

He dreamed that night. He dreamed he was hunting through the forest. A great summer hunt, the entire court with him. His parents, laughing on their horses. His brother, Isfrael, and his sisters, even RiverStar. It was a glorious day, and they rode on the wind and on their power, and all the cares of the world and of Tencendor seemed very, very far away.

But then the dream shifted, changed. They still hunted, but Caelum could no longer see his parents or his brother and sisters. The hounds ran, but he could no
longer see them either. The forest gathered about him, suddenly threatening.

And now even his horse had disappeared. He was running through the forest on foot, his breath tight in his chest, fear pounding through his veins.

Behind him
something
coursed. Hounds, but not hounds. They whispered his name. Oh, Stars! There were hundreds of them! And they hunted him.

They whispered his name.
StarSon! StarSon!

Caelum sobbed in fear.
What was this forest?
It was nothing that he had ever seen in Tencendor. He cut himself on twigs and shrubs, fell, and scrambled, panicking, to his feet.

Something behind him…something…something deadly.

Running.

He heard feet pounding closer, he heard horns, and glad cries. They had cornered him!

Caelum fell to the forest floor and cowered as deeply into the dirt and leaf litter as he could.

But he couldn’t resist one glimpse, and that one glimpse was enough to push him to the brink of insanity.

A man, clad in enveloping dull black armour, rode a great dark horse. In his hand he wielded a massive sword. The horse reared to a halt before him and, as it did so, Caelum found breath for one final scream.

“
DragonStar!
”