Sinner (24 page)

T
he Questors drifted off, claiming some matter they had to attend to, and Drago was left with StarLaughter.

“You are curious,” she said, leaning back from him but keeping her hand on his shoulder. “Come with me and I shall show you this place.”

Drago stood up, feeling a passing dizziness, but steadying himself almost immediately.

“You are still shaken from your journey through the Star Gate,” StarLaughter said. “Stand a while, get your bearings.”

Suddenly Drago remembered his sack. It lay on the floor by his feet and he bent down for it. The Sceptre might be gone, but the sack’s presence still somehow comforted Drago.

StarLaughter smirked. “What is it you dragged through with you from Tencendor, Drago? Here, let me see.”

And she snatched it from him.

Drago tried to hang on, but StarLaughter had moved too quickly, and she hefted the sack in her hands.

“What is this?” she said, and thrust a hand in the sack. “What?”

She drew out her hand and it was filled with silver coins.

“What?” Drago echoed, and seized the sack from StarLaughter. He emptied it out on the couch. All it contained was silver coins. Perhaps twenty-five or thirty. Almost dazed, Drago sifted them through his fingers. They were weighty, and each had stamped on one side a sword, and on the other a staff.

StarLaughter chuckled, and ran a hand through Drago’s hair. “Did you think to pay for your passage, my delightful man?”

Where had they come from? Then Drago remembered the silver coin he’d found to pay the ferryman on the Nordra. Were they somehow connected with the lost Sceptre?

“I carry my wealth about with me,” he said lightly. “I trust no-one.”

StarLaughter’s face lost its humour. “Trust no-one,” she said, and her voice had hardened as well. “Yes, yes. Trust no-one. That is a good plan. I trusted WolfStar, and look what
he
did to me.”

She turned away, walking slowly towards the pillars, then whipped about, holding out a hand. Once again her face was lit with a smile.

“Will you come with me, Drago SunSoar? There are others you should meet.”

Drago swept the coins back into the sack and tied it to his belt.

“We’ll find you a bath and some clean clothes,” StarLaughter said, linking her arm through his as he joined her. “I do not like the stink of sweat and dirt.”

She wrinkled her nose at him, smiled and laughed yet again, and led him through the pillars.

There was a garden outside, and a sky and a sun, but
all was different to anything Drago had ever experienced. The air was heavier, far more oppressive than even the Tencendorian summer, yet it was not hot. The sky was a dark purple, roiling with high clouds, and the sun shone weak silver, as if its own light were an effort it could not endure much longer.

The garden consisted of regularly distanced trees with large lawned spaces between them. The trees, like the light, seemed weak. Their trunks were spindly, their foliage sparse.

Some distance away, just out of Drago’s vision, a cloud moved swiftly among the trees. Perhaps not a cloud, but whatever its true nature, it was dark and insubstantial, moving this way, now that.

“I can comprehend none of this,” he said helplessly.

StarLaughter squeezed his arm sympathetically. “I understand your disorientation. This is a world far away from our home. A world distant from Tencendor. A world that would be but a bare speck, were you still gazing through the Star Gate from the safety and comfort of Tencendor.”

“I have so many questions…”

“Then ask, sweet Drago,” she said, leading him slowly though the trees. “Ask.”

“What happened to me when I stepped through the Star Gate?”

She considered carefully before answering. “In a manner of speaking you died, but death is so unknown, and so largely misunderstood, that to use that expression will probably create illusions in your mind.”

She paused. “You came through, you changed, and yet you are the same.”

“But how did I get here?”

“The Questors felt you, as did my companions. The Questors, bless them, saved you as they saved us.”

Us?
“Saved you? StarLaughter, what happened to you and your…companions…after WolfStar threw you through the Star Gate?”

StarLaughter’s entire body tensed, and her face hardened into a mask of utter hatred.

“We drifted, dead yet undead, for time unknown. We drifted, we hated, we lusted for revenge. But we were lost and helpless. Then,” she took a deep breath and visibly relaxed, “then the Questors found us. Oh, Drago! We owe them so much! Look! Here are my friends, my companions, come to greet you!”

The cloud hurtled closer. Drago halted, wary, but StarLaughter patted his arm and drew him closer, comforting.

“Be not afraid,” she said, “for these are they who, with the Questors’ help, brought you here.”

Some fifteen paces from them the cloud resolved itself into a dense pack of moving bodies. They were Icarii, Drago saw, and yet not at all, but he could not quite discern why. They were the children WolfStar had sacrificed in his mad ambition. Some were as young as ten or eleven, others were nearing adulthood, but all had flat black eyes and expressions of implacable hatred.

There was something else, something Drago could not quite see…something…

As one they tilted their heads to the left, and regarded Drago. As one they fluttered, and twitched their heads to the other side. Curious. A strange murmuring arose from them, and then quieted.

As one, they shifted from leg to leg, and fluttered their wings behind them.

And as they tilted their heads, yet again as one, Drago had the impression of beaks and talons, although his eyes only saw faces and hands.

Abruptly he realised what it was about the children. They were more birdlike than Icarii.

They were a flock. A flock with a single mind.

“Revenge,” StarLaughter said, and left Drago’s side to scratch under the chin of the nearest child, and then to smooth back its hair from its forehead. “We all quest for revenge. My Hawkchilds and I.”

She looked back at Drago. “What happened to us, Drago? We were betrayed. Our futures and our heritage were stolen from us.”

A frightful murmuring arose from the flock behind her, and she waited until it had died down before repeating, “Betrayed, and our heritage stolen.”

“Yes! As
my
heritage was betrayed and
my
future stolen!”

“Yes!” cried StarLaughter. “And as the Questors’ heritage was stolen from them by the Enemy. Don’t you see, Drago? We are all the Betrayed, and we are all engaged in the same crusade. To recover that which was stolen from us!”

Drago stared at her, unable to believe his good fortune. These beings sympathised with him, they liked him, and they would help him recover his Icarii power. Drago was overcome with the idea that for the first time in his life he was no longer alone. Others had been as badly treated as he. He smiled, and then laughed.

Suddenly StarLaughter was in Drago’s arms and he held her tight and kissed her passionately – it was the first time he’d ever held an Icarii woman. He was home. Revenge
would
be his!

From the garden StarLaughter led him back inside the building – Drago had only the haziest impression of a large domed structure – and into a chamber different
from the one he had woken in. It was smaller, and obviously a living chamber.

“There is one more you must meet,” StarLaughter said softly, and she led Drago to a crib.

She lifted a bundle from it, and beckoned Drago closer. “See?” she said as he stood at her side. “See? My son.”

Drago looked, and swallowed instant revulsion. StarLaughter carried a baby in her arms, but he was not alive – though neither was he dead.

Drago frowned. The baby neither breathed nor moved. His skin was pale and waxy. His eyes stared wide open, as flat and black as Drago had seen in the faces of the children outside. Strange, disturbing eyes. The baby showed no reaction to StarLaughter.

“Pretty, sweet baby,” StarLaughter crooned. She rocked him gently in her arms. “Sweet, lovely son. See my new friend? His name is Drago, and he will help us wreak revenge upon your father.”

Suddenly, horrifyingly, she lifted the baby into Drago’s arms. He had to bite down nausea. His fingers grazed the baby’s skin above the wraps, and it felt cold and clammy.

The baby’s eyes stared straight ahead, unknowing.

Dead but not dead.

Hastily Drago handed the baby back to his mother. “He was born after you came through the Star Gate?”

“He slipped from my body with the shock, yes. But, see, Drago, is he not beautiful? Is he not lovely? My sweet, sweet son – what a man you will grow to be!”

StarLaughter sat down on a chair and bared a breast, lifting her child to suckle. She turned his head to her breast, but the baby’s head flopped, and the nipple slipped from its unresponsive mouth.

StarLaughter seemed not to notice. She sat and crooned to her child as if he suckled vigorously,
encouraging him, telling him what a wonderful, strong, healthy child he was.

Unable to turn away, Drago watched, sickened. After some minutes StarLaughter wiped the baby’s mouth, even though there was no hint of moisture there, covered her breast, and placed the baby back in the cot.

“We’ll leave him to sleep,” she whispered, and drew Drago away. “He is growing so fast, he needs his rest.”

Drago wondered if her experiences had left StarLaughter slightly unhinged. Could she not see what was wrong with the babe?

But maybe she couldn’t bear to let him go.

Yes, some mothers were like that. Unable to let a dead child go.

But that child was not
quite
dead.

Drago shuddered, and StarLaughter frowned as she sat him down on a couch overlooking the garden.

“What ails you, Drago? Are you in pain? Hungry? Perhaps I should draw you a bath, you –”

“No, no, I am well, StarLaughter. Tell me,” he forced the baby from his mind, “what did you mean ‘usable’ when you spoke to the Questors earlier? And how can I help you get back through the Star Gate?”

“Ah.” StarLaughter snuggled close to Drago’s body and put her head on his shoulder. Drago relaxed, enjoying the warmth. It had been a very long time since anyone had given him so much affection.

“The Questors and we are engaged in the same quest, my love,” she said, and the endearment slipped naturally from her lips. “We seek what has been stolen from us. The Questors have been seeking, hunting, for much longer than have I and my companions. Aeons.”

Drago remembered the legends of Fire-Night. They were ancient, telling of a time even before the original Enchantress founded the three human-like races of
Tencendor. Perhaps the ancient ones, the Questors’ Enemy, had been running for thousands of years even before they had crashed into Tencendor and created the Sacred Lakes.

“A long time,” he said softly. “And they could not find what they wanted in all this time?”

“Oh, they
knew
where the Enemy had fled, but they did not have the power to break through the Star Gate, nor even to approach it.”

She shifted slightly against his body, and for an instant Drago’s mind was filled with possibilities that had nothing to do with regaining his power. But StarLaughter continued.

“The Questors need the power of someone
from
Tencendor to actually pull them to, and then through, the Star Gate.”

“But you, and the children – the Hawkchilds – are powerful, surely. You are an Enchanter, and the children were all of great potential.”

“Once.” StarLaughter sighed. “Once. But we drifted a long time before the Questors found us, Drago. During that time our powers ebbed. The Questors have managed to use what was left of our powers to travel this close to the Star Gate, but no closer. But you,” she looked up and smiled, “
you
have what they need. Your life force is so strong.
You
are going to get us through, Drago!”

Her hand rested on one of his legs, and she squeezed slightly.

“Me?” he said, trying to maintain at least the appearance of calmness. “How? I am useless as I am.”

“The Questors can touch that part of you your mother buried so brutally. They can use it. Your power was not destroyed, only hidden. But what is important, my love,” and her hand began to slowly trail up his thigh, “is that you
will
get us back through the Star Gate.”

“But –”

“Not now, my beloved,” she whispered, and sat up so she could kiss him. “Not now.”

Her hand started to rub him, arousing with each motion.

“And will you regain me my heritage?” Drago managed to ask, his voice hoarse. “Can your Questors reverse my blood order? Make me once again an Icarii Enchanter?”

“Easily, my love,” she said, “you shall be all that you want.”

And then there was no more breath for words.

F
rom the Ancient Barrows, Faraday walked south through the grassy Tarantaise plains. She had never been so happy previously. Never.
Nothing
compared to this freedom she now enjoyed.

For that she thanked both Drago and Noah.

She did not know exactly what changes her transformation had wrought. Noah had said that the Sceptre had enriched her, given her the power to find what was lost. But Faraday knew the changes went beyond that. From brief glimpses caught in streams she could see she looked like the Faraday who had died in Gorgrael’s Ice Fortress, save that the lines of care and sadness about her eyes and mouth had gone. But if she
looked
like that Faraday, she did not know if she was quite the same woman.

That woman had laboured in her service to the Mother and the trees. Now the trees waved in the sun far behind her and did not need her. They still loved her, Faraday could feel that, and she them. But they did not need her.

That woman had been torn to emotional and physical shreds by her love for Axis. Now she felt largely
indifferent to him. The love had gone. She felt friendship towards Axis, but she did not know if she would ever completely trust him again. Even though Faraday knew he could not have saved her in Gorgrael’s chamber, somehow she had always hoped he would.

But he hadn’t. Gorgrael had torn her apart, and Faraday’s love and regard for Axis had died with her.

The Mother still loved her, Faraday knew that, too. But she realised the Mother was willing to let her go.

Perhaps…perhaps her transformation into the doe had only been a stage, a transition. The Mother had promised her that for her service to the Prophecy of the Destroyer and the trees she would eventually run unfettered, and Faraday had supposed that when she had been transformed into the doe that promise had been fulfilled.

But in its own way, that had also been an entrapment, and Faraday had not been free to do as she wished.

“But for the moment I am!” Faraday ran through the grass, her arms outstretched, hair and cloak flying, laughing with sheer exuberance.

Once she had slowed down and caught her breath, Faraday turned her thoughts to the three people who now most concerned her.

StarDrifter. Her mouth curled in secret amusement as she thought of him. Axis’ father. She did not know StarDrifter very well, but what she did know she liked. He was as arrogant as his son, but more open in that arrogance. If StarDrifter had a liking for something – or someone – then everyone knew about it. He would not have hidden a lover from Faraday, but would have confronted her with it. And yet, in that very confrontation, shielded her.

He was arrogant, but he also knew how to care. Faraday thought that the events surrounding Gorgrael’s
invasion of Tencendor had taught him responsibility and had deepened his sense of compassion. Now that he lived on the Island of Mist and Memory, leading the Icarii’s worship of the stars and the Star Gods, he had more to think about than the relieving of his own desires.

Faraday had seen at once that he cared very much for Zenith, and she thought that no-one else had a better chance of helping the woman. Faraday sighed, and some of her happiness slid away. Poor Zenith. Another of Axis and Azhure’s children caught up in some maelstrom not of their choosing or making.

From Zenith, Faraday’s thoughts moved inevitably to Drago.

The evil rogue, the betraying child.

All true. And yet – more.

He would come back, and then she would see. She smiled.

And so Faraday walked on.

That night she dug out a hollow beneath the grasses, then curled up in the ruby cloak, and it kept her warm enough. The next morning she was awoken by her stomach growling in hunger.

She sat up, half expecting Goodwife Renkin to appear with a plate of sausages and eggs, but the Goodwife was nowhere to be seen.

“On my own,” she said, combing her hair with her fingers. “Well, that is as it should be.”

And so she rose and began once again to walk south.

In the mid-morning Faraday came upon an isolated farmhouse. Several fields ranged to the north and west of the farmhouse, and a herd of brown and cream cattle grazed on a hilltop some three hundred paces away. The house was made of faded mud-brick, with long low
walls, and a well-patched thatch roof. A woman, the goodwife, was bent over in her vegetable patch beside the house.

Faraday stopped and looked, a half-smile on her face. The scene reminded her so much of the time the Goodwife Renkin had sheltered her and Timozel, on their way north to Gorkenfort.

I hope I can touch this woman’s life for the better, too, Faraday thought, and walked towards the house.

“Goodwife?” she said softly as she stopped at the vegetable patch’s boundary.

The woman jerked up straight, surprised by the voice.

“I mean you no harm,” Faraday said, wondering what she must look like, barefoot, wild-haired, and naked underneath a rich ruby cloak.

“What do you want?” the woman asked, her eyes watchful but her tone reasonably friendly.

Faraday looked at her carefully. She was thin, and abnormally pale. Hard-worked, yes, but there was more…

“Take a small linen bag of stout weave,” Faraday said, “and ask your goodman to fill it with iron filings. Put this bag into your stew pot, and eat well of the stew that you bubble in it. Keep the bag in that pot, week in, week out. When the linen decays, make another bag for the filings.”

“Why?”

“In this way,” Faraday said, “you will re-find your health, and your fertility. No more will your babes slip from your womb in the first month or two after conception.”

The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Lady, I do thank you. How may I repay your kindness?”

“Well,” Faraday said hopefully, “do you have an old dress that perhaps you no longer need, and a pair of boots?”

And so, now comfortably booted and robed, Faraday walked on. As the sun dipped into mid-afternoon she came across a band of horse traders. They drove before them a herd of some forty horses, mostly yearlings, bound for the markets of Carlon far to the west.

Their leader, a rough-whiskered middle-aged man, pulled his horse up and stared at her.

Faraday felt no fear, and she merely returned his regard, a small smile on her face.

“Who are you?” the man asked roughly.

“My name is Faraday,” she said.

“You are a long way from any village,” said another man, pulling his horse up beside that of his leader.

Faraday nodded, but said nothing.

The men, three now, sat their horses and stared at her. The possibilities in the barren plain were endless. Rape, and then a murder to silence her. Perhaps rape, and then a quick sale in the unquestioning markets of Nor.

Faraday looked at them, trusting.

One of the men slid from his horse, handed the reins to his companion, and walked over until he stood less than a pace from Faraday.

“You’re a very beautiful woman,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Here,” he said, and handed her his purse. “Take what you want.”

“Thank you very much,” Faraday said, and graced him with her warm, lovely smile. She slid several coins out, then handed it back to the man.

As he took it she said, “Your wife has lost most of her youth, hasn’t she?”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

Faraday shrugged away the question. “She is unhappy, because along with her youth she feels she is losing you.”

The man shifted uncomfortably.

Faraday placed her hand lightly on the man’s chest. “Your wife’s youth lies in your heart.” She patted his chest gently. “Only you have the power to give it back to her.”

He stared at her, then nodded, understanding. “You are very wise.”

Faraday laughed. “No, good sir, I am merely repaying the debt I owe you.”

And with that she slipped the coins into a pocket, and walked away.

The three men sat their horses for a very long time, watching her.

South, south, ever south. A week after she’d met the horse-traders Faraday veered south-west, heading for the province of Nor. With the coin the horse-trader had given her she purchased food from the isolated homesteads she occasionally passed, but otherwise Faraday kept away from habitation. She enjoyed her solitude. At night she wrapped herself in the ruby cloak and slept dreamlessly, a small smile on her face.

Once in Nor Faraday met many more people. Nor was the most populous of Tencendor’s provinces and, in many ways, the most intense. Its vividness showed in the characters of the Nors people themselves, in their clothes, the way they decorated their homes, and in virtually every aspect of their lives. Convention was anathema to the Nors people, they lived and loved at a pace and with a fervour the other Acharites often had trouble accepting.

Faraday loved it. These people were
alive,
and she revelled in them.

In upper Nor she decided she’d had enough of walking, her boot soles were growing ever thinner, and so she decided to find passage south on a merchant’s cart.

She waited for a day by the side of a road, watching trading traffic going by, waiting for the right merchant. Finally, towards evening, she spotted a man walking beside a cart loaded with pottery and pulled by four sturdy horses.

“Good sir,” she cried as the cart came level with her.

“Aye?” the man said carefully, looking her up and down. He was thin and brown-haired, still young, but with the hunched shoulders of one far older.

“Good sir, I wonder if you travel to Ysbadd. I would go there.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. He wondered how she would pay. He had no taste for whores, and she did not look as if she could pay him the coin such a journey deserved.

“You have lost trade recently,” Faraday said. “I can tell you how to find it again. That should be worth the cost of my journey.”

“What –”

“It is your brother’s doing. He was jealous at your initial success at carting these pots,” and Faraday waved her hand at the cart, “and has spread the tale that you trade only in weak and defective vessels.”

The man regarded her steadily. It would not be past Holt to do such a thing. “And how do I regain this trade, fine lady?”

“Guarantee your produce. Offer to replace every faulty vessel that you sell – or have sold – with a sound one.”

“But that would cost me –”

Faraday grinned. “Only if you
have
been trading in faulty vessels, Jarl.”

Jarl wondered how she knew his name. But he thought on what she’d said, then smiled himself. “You have a sharp mind, lady. What should I call you? It is many days travel south to Ysbadd.”

Faraday let him help her climb into a spare space on the cart. “My name is Faraday, Jarl. Have I earned my journey?”

“You have indeed, Faraday, you have indeed.”

Ysbadd left Faraday breathless. If she had been any younger she thought she might have clapped her hands in glee. She nodded goodbye to Jarl in the main square, where he was loudly proclaiming his new idea of guarantee, and she wandered the streets for hours. The city was a riotous mixture of gaudy spires and fat domes, intermixed with cool shaded walks and parks. People thronged the streets and markets, colourful in scarves and beads, and waved from windows, shouting greetings to strangers and family alike.

As a girl Faraday had always been warned to be careful of Nors people by her thin-mouthed mother. Nors morals were not what the staid northerners agreed with. Yet wandering through the streets, Faraday decided that for all their fun-loving and indulgent lives, the Nors people were basically good-hearted.

By dusk she felt hungry, and so picked a food stall where, in return for her fill of beef stew and fresh bread, she told its proprietor where he could find the gold tooth he’d lost during a drunken party several weeks ago.

Having eaten, Faraday asked directions to the port and, once on the wharf, she walked slowly to and fro, eyeing the ships, until she finally climbed aboard a vessel with dusky pink sails and black eyes painted in the centre of each canvas. A deckhand asked her what she wanted, and she said she wanted to see the Master.

“For passage?” the deckhand asked.

“Yes. I have heard you provision for a voyage to the Island of Mist and Memory.”

“Oh aye,” the deckhand muttered. “We provision, alright, but I doubt we’ll be voyaging anywhere in the near future.”

“Nevertheless, I would like to see the Master of the vessel.”

“Very well,” the deckhand said, and led her below.

“Go away!” a voice shouted when Faraday knocked politely on the cabin door.

“I believe,” Faraday said clearly, “that you’ve lost your nerve.”

There was utter silence on the other side of the door.

“I have come to help you find it again,” Faraday said, and folded her hands and waited.

After a moment the door opened.