Sinner (27 page)

S
pikeFeather moored his boat to the dusty grey rock and studied the city before him. WingRidge had drawn a plan of the waterways, directing him to this cavern.

“Find a way down,” WingRidge had said, and then remained obstinately silent.

What is it about the Icarii race, SpikeFeather thought irritably, that so predisposes us to mysteries? No doubt WingRidge thought there was value in making SpikeFeather toil in finding his way to this forgotten Maze, but SpikeFeather thought WingRidge could just as easily have told him directly.

He stood in one of the largest caverns in the waterways. It soared high above his head, so high SpikeFeather could not see its roof in this dimness, and extended so far back that SpikeFeather was sure he could fly for an entire day and not reach its limits. Most of the cavern was taken up with an ancient city so old that the stone of walls and pavement had bleached into a colourless grey. Cracks webbed their way through wall and road alike, and rock dust lay thick over every flat surface and clung in damp draperies to the walls.
The buildings were massive, fourteen, fifteen levels high, SpikeFeather guessed, and each level spacious enough to plant a field of grain in. Doors of petrified wood hung at odd angles, shutters lay in piles beneath windows and littered the roadways.

It was a place, not of death, but of nothingness. People (
who?
) had once lived, loved, laughed and died here. But there was nothing left. Nothing to remember them by save these memory-less buildings. The entire purpose of their existence had been lost forever.

SpikeFeather shook himself out of his maudlin thoughts. He reached into the boat and drew out a dry brand – Orr had insisted he always carry a torch with him in case he found the need to explore the caverns. Well, now SpikeFeather had the need. He lit the brand and, carrying it high, walked into the city.

Down, WingRidge had said, so SpikeFeather walked slowly through the streets, looking for an entrance to a cellar, or steps leading down…
something.
But no matter how hard he looked, and how many buildings he explored, he found no trapdoors or stairwells.

Down. But how? Only the need to find Orr and to explain his terror kept SpikeFeather looking even when tiredness began to slow his steps. He did not know how far he’d wandered through the city, or how much time had passed, when he came upon a curious symbol scratched into the pavement.

It was a diagram of a knot – a maze.

It was the same symbol that the Lake Guard wore on their tunics.

SpikeFeather squatted down and studied the symbol. It showed a stylised maze, a walled circular centre space with twists of corridors about it, eventually leading, once the dead ends had been negotiated, to an exit. SpikeFeather looked at the exit, then looked to where it
pointed. There was an alleyway leading away from the main street.

SpikeFeather stood and walked down the alleyway. Some seventy paces down he found another symbol scratched into the pavement, and this time the exit from the maze pointed down a wide avenue.

SpikeFeather followed the sign until he found another symbol, and another, and then another.

He paused, and looked about. He was back in a street that he knew he’d been down hours ago – and yet there had not been a symbol here then. And look! The next indicated street was another that he’d previously explored. He realised he was retracing his steps, and the maze symbols also criss-crossed each other, so he was partly retracing the original pathway the symbols had told him to take.

SpikeFeather stood and thought. Lost? Misled? Or something else?

He remembered something Orr had taught him. The waterways formed patterns in the same way that sung music did. Were the symbols leading him in a complicated dance? Were the patterns he formed with his steps a kind of magical dance – an enchantment?

Yes, yes, that was it. The symbols were forcing him to form a pattern, and when that pattern was completed…

SpikeFeather hurried down the street indicated. Now that he knew what was happening he did not hesitate. He felt rejuvenated, excited. How much longer before he completed the pattern – the enchantment – that would show him the Maze?

As it turned out, not long. Three more symbols, three more turns, and the enchantment slipped into place.

SpikeFeather walked into a large rectangular stoneflagged market area, an area he had crossed four times already in his quest for the Maze. But this time there was
something different. This time almost all the stone flagging had disappeared to make way for a massive set of stairs leading down, down, down.

“Down,” SpikeFeather whispered, and began his descent.

He climbed down the wide, winding stairwell until his legs screamed in protest. This was longer and more arduous than any of the stairwells SpikeFeather had travelled in order to reach the waterways from the Overworld. The incline of the stairwell was deceptively mild, but after hours of travelling and turning, SpikeFeather had learned to curse it.

He stopped, paused, and laughed wryly to himself. What was he doing? Had his years with Orr fuddled him so completely he’d forgotten his wings?

Still smiling ruefully, SpikeFeather spread his almostforgotten wings and spiralled down the stairwell.

In two turns he came to the end, and he wondered if he’d passed some kind of test.

There was a high corridor, extending perhaps some hundred paces before him. It was lined with columns carved with strange picture symbols that SpikeFeather glanced at but did not pause to investigate. He strode down the corridor, through the archway at its end, and stopped…stunned into complete immobility.

He stood at the lip of yet another staircase, but he could well see where this one led. Before him spread a city – but it was more than a city. It was also a maze. A labyrinth. And it was massive beyond comprehension.

There was a wall, some thirty paces high, that ran about it, but directly before SpikeFeather, at the foot of the staircase, was a gate.

SpikeFeather walked slowly down the stairs. Like everything else associated with this Maze, the gate was huge. It stood twenty paces high, and ten across. It was
arched with great blocks of stone guarding twin closed doors of solid wood. There were no handles, no locks. SpikeFeather cautiously laid a hand on one of the doors and pushed.

It did not budge…but the instant that he’d laid his hand on the wood SpikeFeather had felt rather than heard a distant tinkle.

As if glass had broken.

SpikeFeather was no fool, and Orr had taught him well. He knew what that was. These gates had been warded. An enchantment had been laid over them to warn someone if they were touched.

Warn who?

Warn of what?

SpikeFeather spun about, unsure what to do. Should he run? Get out? Should he –

“Well, well. I always thought it would be Caelum who found this Maze,” said a voice, “or at the very least Axis.”

WolfStar SunSoar stepped down from the arch of the corridor. “But, no. It is SpikeFeather TrueSong. The Ferryman’s apprentice. A birdman with no business here at all. What do you do here, birdman?”

“
H
ow did you find this place?” WolfStar said, walking down the steps. “The Lake Guard drew me a diagram.”

WolfStar stopped on the last step and raised his eyebrows. “The Lake Guard? But they were ever sworn to secrecy regarding this place.”

“They are afraid that the Grail King stirs.”

“
What?
”

WolfStar rocked badly enough to make him almost lose his balance. Then, in a movement so fast it was a blur, he was on top of SpikeFeather, a hand buried in the cloth of his tunic, another in SpikeFeather’s hair. “
What?
”

“The Grail King in the Maze,” SpikeFeather forced out between teeth clenched in fear. “Qeteb. The Maze. That is all I know.”

Qeteb? he wondered amid his fear. Was that the name of the Grail King? Of whatever was trapped in the Maze?

“And how is it that
you
know these things, SpikeFeather TrueSong? You are an apprentice Ferryman,” WolfStar spat the phrase with unconcealed disgust, “and not even an Enchanter. You have no right to know these things, nor to be standing before the Maze itself!”

As briefly and as quickly as he could, SpikeFeather told WolfStar of the message – and the terror – Orr had passed across to him.

“I have been looking for Orr as much as the Maze, WolfStar. Do…do you think he might be in there?”

Despite WolfStar’s still fierce grip, SpikeFeather managed to tilt his head slightly towards the Maze.

“In there?” WolfStar let SpikeFeather go and the birdman relaxed. “In the Maze? No, I do not think so. He would not be able to enter. Caelum is the only one who can.”

“Caelum?”

WolfStar ignored the question. “I need to retrieve the memory of the night Orr sent you that message, SpikeFeather. Be still…this will not hurt.”

WolfStar buried his hand in SpikeFeather’s hair again, holding him still. The Enchanter initiated the Song of Recall, faltered, then recovered, and SpikeFeather felt the memory of Orr’s terror and words sear up through his mind.

Strangely, for SpikeFeather had thought WolfStar lied, the enchantment did not pain him in the slightest. The sensation was unusual, but not unpleasant. The memory of Orr’s words and emotions tumbled through his mind, and he could feel WolfStar playing with them, reviewing them from every angle and, SpikeFeather shivered, travelling back down the memory to its source.

To the Star Chamber.

“Stars!” WolfStar cried, and again let SpikeFeather go.

SpikeFeather stumbled, but as he caught his balance WolfStar cried, “Look!”

Before them the grey haze of the vision appeared. In it Orr struggled at the very lip of the Star Gate with Drago SunSoar. Both were shouting, struggling for possession of something wrapped about with an old cloth of strange shifting colours…

WolfStar groaned and sank to his knees. SpikeFeather, dragging his eyes away from the vision for an instant, could not believe the horror on the Enchanter’s face.
What was it that so terrified Orr and WolfStar alike?

“He has the Rainbow Sceptre,” WolfStar mumbled. “That carrion bastard Drago has the Sceptre!”

Orr had his hand about the smooth wood of the rod.

“It speaks to Orr,” WolfStar said tonelessly. “The Sceptre acted as a conduit for the power of the Maze. The Maze was the source of the knowledge and the words, SpikeFeather. Not Orr. Orr knew nothing of this place or what it contained.”

“The Sceptre spoke to –?”

“It must be terrified. Look, see how they struggle! The Sceptre has passed the terror to Orr, and he to you. Oh, mercy! Drago, I should have killed you myself!” WolfStar lowered himself into a crouch, almost as if he thought to spring into the vision itself.

Now Drago had pushed Orr away, and he spun the Sceptre about his head. The cloths had fallen off it, and rainbow light spun about the chamber.

Then, amid the violent struggle, the Sceptre came crashing down on Orr’s head, and the Ferryman collapsed on the floor.

“No!” SpikeFeather cried, and reached uselessly into the vision.

“Yes!” WolfStar said. “See how practised Drago has become at murder? He tried with Caelum, succeeded with RiverStar and see how he now does Orr to death!”

Orr breathed his last, and with that the vision faded.

But not before WolfStar had caught a glimpse of the red doe watching from the pillars.
Faraday?

WolfStar slowly straightened from his crouch. Had Faraday seen what happened next?

“Did Drago step through the Star Gate with that
Sceptre?” WolfStar asked no-one in particular. “Did he?”

“WolfStar, what is happening? Is Orr dead? What
is
this Maze? WolfStar,
tell me what is happening!
”

WolfStar’s eyes slowly focused on SpikeFeather’s face. “Well, why not. The Maze itself seemed to want you to find it. Perhaps the Lake Guard were right to trust you. Yes, Orr is dead –”

SpikeFeather wailed.

“Oh, stop your grieving! He had outlived his time and has at least performed one valuable service in relaying the Sceptre’s warning.”

“WolfStar! Tell me what is –”

“If you will be quiet for more than one moment then I will!” WolfStar took a deep breath. “Good. Now, this Maze has stood here for many thousands of years. Tens of thousands of years. Until I told the children who have grown into the Lake Guard, none knew about it save I. Not even Orr or any other Charonite.”

“Did you learn of it beyond the Star Gate? Is it one of the mysteries you brought back with you from the dead?”

WolfStar thought about again rebuking SpikeFeather for the interruption, but decided against it. “In a sense you are right, for I first learned of the Maze beyond the Star Gate. The Maze itself managed to reach me – I know not how – and inducted me into certain knowledges. Largely it was the Maze’s power that enabled me to come back.”

“And you have kept its secrets since you returned? For three thousand years?”

WolfStar nodded.

“Then why show the children I rescued from Talon Spike? Why did they become the Lake Guard?”

WolfStar frowned, for he knew there was something between the Maze and the Lake Guard he was not privy to. “The Maze asked to see them, and so I brought them here.”

“Yet Orr, as all the other Charonites, never knew of the Maze?”

WolfStar was growing tired of the incessant questioning – why did the Maze need to see
this
irritating birdman of all people?

“They were not required to attend the Maze, SpikeFeather, and thus it never informed them of its presence.”

WolfStar’s mouth curved in secret amusement. “Did you realise that we stand directly under the Grail Lake? This cavern lies far below the depths of the lake.”

SpikeFeather looked startled, his eyes darting nervously upwards as if he expected to see faint trails of moisture seeping down the cavern roof far above.

“SpikeFeather, did you have a chance to examine the gate itself?”

WolfStar walked to the stone arches surrounding the gates, SpikeFeather a step behind him. As he got closer, SpikeFeather saw that the stone was covered in the same strange characters as the columns in the corridor leading to the Maze had been.

WolfStar glanced at SpikeFeather. “Can you read them?”

“No, I can’t…no, wait. This, and this…they are pictorial representations of…”

“Ideas and conceptions, SpikeFeather. The ancients wrote in language that did not use letters as we know them, but actually drew different symbols to impart ideas. If you remember that, then the translation does not become too difficult, although it will take you some months to master it fully. But for now I shall translate. See, the inscription starts here.”

WolfStar squatted by the foot of the arch, his finger tracing upwards, and began to read. The Gate told of a time when four craft from a world very far away crashed
into Tencendor, so long ago that the land had a different and now long-forgotten name. The creatures within the craft had died, but the craft had survived, burying themselves into the land, the depressions they created eventually forming the Sacred Lakes.

“The waters of these lakes borrowed an infinitesimally tiny amount of the residual power left from the crafts’ impact, but enough to make them deeply magical. The true magic, however, lay far deeper under the waters.”

WolfStar paused, knowing SpikeFeather was not ready for it all, yet.

But then, who was?

No, there were others who needed to know first – yet even before he told them, WolfStar needed to discover if the vision had been correct, if Drago had truly stolen the Rainbow Sceptre.

“The craft contained various items,” WolfStar said. “Items that the creatures who had originally driven the craft had…appropriated…from some others. I am afraid that these others will one day come back for them.”

And if the shit-rotted Drago
had
gone through the Star Gate with the Sceptre then they might very well be on the move now.

WolfStar stilled, a frightful coldness creeping over him. Over these past few weeks he had noted an annoying weakness in his power. Not much, just a trifle, but it was there. Witness the minor problem he’d just had with the Song of Recall. Was it because…? No! No! It could not be!

Gods, but he needed to know what was happening!

“WolfStar? WolfStar?”

WolfStar broke out of his reverie. “Yes?”

“If these ‘others’ come back, WolfStar, do we let them take what is theirs?”

WolfStar slowly shook his head. “No. No, we do
not
let them take what they want. We fight until Tencendor itself is charcoal, if necessary, but we do not let them take what is theirs. Look.” WolfStar pointed to a symbol above the cornerstone of the arch. It was a star, surmounted by a sun.

WolfStar smiled gently. “StarSon.”

“The Lake Guard said they owed their loyalty to the StarSon.”

“Yes, they would protect him above all else.”

“Why did you say only Caelum could enter this Maze? And why is StarSon mentioned on this archway?”

WolfStar thought very hard, then decided a portion of the truth would not hurt. “SpikeFeather, the Rainbow Sceptre is made partly from the power of the Mother, but in great part it uses as its power the energy of the four craft themselves. The energy that powered the craft also enlivens the Sceptre. The Sceptre is very closely tied to the craft, with what the craft protect, and is thus closely tied to this Maze which is an outgrowth of one of the craft. Axis SunSoar used the Sceptre to destroy Gorgrael, but he used only a tiny proportion of its power to do that. SpikeFeather, I believe the Sceptre can also be used, if need be, to destroy what lies at the heart of the Maze.”

“And StarSon?”

“I believe StarSon is the only one who can wield it. Caelum…I have always loved that boy, but when I knew also how he, or his descendants, might protect Tencendor against the horrors that seep through the Star Gate, my love grew three-fold.”

WolfStar suddenly turned around and stared furiously at SpikeFeather. “And now that
carrion
has stolen the Rainbow Sceptre! Has he also taken it through to the TimeKeepers?
Has he?
”

Before SpikeFeather could form any answer, WolfStar disappeared, leaving behind him as many questions as he had answered.

Most particularly, SpikeFeather realised, he had carefully steered the conversation away from the subject of the Grail King and Qeteb.