Starflower (24 page)

I watched as the elder of the Crescent People dragged the frayed end of the rope out of the trees. Bear gave a monstrous howl, broke from the warriors' grasp, and vanished into the forest.

I knew then, without a doubt: Sun Eagle would never return.

E
ANRIN

S
OMEONE
TOOK
HOLD
of his arm in the shadows. Then, with a tug that nearly dislocated his shoulder, Eanrin was spun about and pulled into headlong flight. “Run!” the voice in the dark urged him.

“Who are you?” Eanrin gasped, though he already knew. In his heart, he knew.

“No time for that now,” said the voice. “Run for your life!”

There was no room for thought, no room for anything save terror. He must run! Through twisted, labyrinthine ways, through gasping reaches. All this Eanrin sensed in no more than an instant as he fled hand in hand with that darkness he could neither see nor identify. Anything to escape the Hound! The Hound, who would devour him, body and soul!

How could it have come even here, into the depths of the pit? Eanrin's spirit shuddered at the thought. Was there then no escape? He had fled throughout the turning of the ages; since the moment he drew his first
breath, he had lived in constant flight. Eluding that One who would make him, if caught, into something other than himself. Who would break him and reform him until he could scarcely be recognized.

Nothing would be left but the Hound. Nothing, if he did not flee!

In that mad dash through the unassailable blackness, Eanrin's fear-crazed mind played evil games. Flashes struck his eyes like lightning, and in those flashes he glimpsed scenes from his own life, moments he never stopped to count and therefore forgot sooner than remembered. None of these moments were in themselves worth remembering: fine games, high festivities, beautiful women and songs. But he saw them now, with the threat of the Hound just at his heels, and recognized them for the desperate battles they were. How he clung to the only life he knew! How he flung himself into it with every ounce of his strength, hoping to ignore the inevitable footsteps beating upon his fears.

The Hound had always pursued him. He knew it as he fled in the darkness. The Hound had pursued him from the moment of Eanrin's first waking, coursing at his heels every day of his long and weary existence.

A final flash burst upon the poet's vision. He screamed and fell to his knees, though the grip on his arm never relaxed. Covering his face with his hands, he strove to push from his eyes the memory seared there.

The moment upon the battlefields of Arpiar when he stood with blood upon his sword and gazed down into the stricken face of a dead goblin man. The face of Death himself.

“The end of us all,” he moaned, rocking himself in the darkness. “The end of us all, without exception.”

A voice hissed at him from above. “What are you talking about, little creature?”

“Death!” Eanrin gagged. The name tasted foul upon his tongue. “Death, the inevitable victor.”

Someone stood beside him. Until that moment, Eanrin had not been able to perceive any presence save the hard grasp on his arm and the voice. Now he could feel the heat of a body standing beside him. But he dared not open his eyes. Not with that vision still heavy upon his memory. So he sat unseeing, and the stranger beside him did not speak.

At long last Eanrin put out one hand to push himself upright. His
fingers touched icy water. He drew in a sharp, hissing breath. “Dragon's teeth!”

“You are safe now,” said the stranger beside him.

Eanrin sat up on his knees and wiped his hand on his already soiled shirt. “Safe?” he repeated, his voice tremulous.

“Yes.”

Eanrin shivered. He could now feel mud seeping through his clothes. He considered taking cat form, but the mud would be still less bearable then. “He . . . he has been hounding me,” he said in a low whisper, shuddering. “I am so afraid.”

“You should be,” said the stranger.

“I know.” Eanrin shook himself, wishing he could somehow shake away the dread that clutched his heart.

“You don't know,” said the stranger. “You don't know anything. Have you seen what becomes of those the Hound catches? Do you know what fates awaited the Brothers Ashiun, the first to be caught in that One's jaws?”

“I know,” said the poet. “I know what happened to Etanun and Akilun.”

“You did not see!” the stranger cried. “But I did. I watched the whole sad drama play out from beginning to end. They lost themselves in the Lumil Eliasul
.
”

Shuddering, Eanrin whispered, “Do not speak that name!”

“It is the name you should most dread. Not the name of Death! Death is only a final release, the last barrier between you and the completion of your Self. The final curtain that must be swept aside before you can become everything you have always wished to be. A god.

“But the Lumil Eliasul won't make you a god. He will make you his slave.”

“They lost everything,” Eanrin moaned. “They lost everything they had!”

“Indeed, they did. Etanun and Akilun gave up all in the service of that One. And when at last Etanun realized he wanted more, do you think he was allowed to leave freely? Was he granted permission to seek my kiss? No! It is a dreadful thing to be loved by the Lumil Eliasul.”

“Poor Etanun,” Eanrin whispered.

“Yes, poor Etanun! Brave Knight of the Farthest Shore reduced to rags, to dust. And all because his Master would not set him free to pursue his deepest desire. His desire to be complete, to alone be god of himself, beholden to no one! Is this a crime, I ask you?”

“It's a terrible thing, love,” Eanrin said. He tried to open his eyes, but all was darkness. He could not guess if he was blind or lost in a world without light. “Love is the most dreadful end.”

“It is!” said the stranger. “Once you love, you lose. You can never have your Self back! Once you allow anyone else to mean more to you than you do, how can you be whole? You are broken, weak, vulnerable to all assaults. It was love that broke Akilun when he went to his brother's aid. And it was love that broke Etanun when, with Akilun's murder upon his hands, he forsook the path I had set before his feet and lost forever his chance to receive my kiss. To taste my fire.”

A sob caught in the poet's throat, and he bowed his head, covering his face once more.

“To have the Lumil Eliasul is to have nothing else besides,” whispered the stranger. “He will fill you with love, and you will lose your soul to him.”

“No matter how hard I flee, still he pursues!” Eanrin cried. “No matter how far, even here in the pit.”

“He will hound you to destruction,” said the stranger in the smooth tones of a father. “But should you embrace Death, it is you who will have the victory, not he.”

“I have tried so many ways to hide!” The poet tore at his own face and mouth with trembling fingers. “I have covered myself in veils of vagueness and foppery. I have dazzled the worlds with my disguises. But he sees through every blind. He knows what I am inside. I cannot escape him!”

“Only Death can liberate you.”

“I have scorned his servants, those pretty knights. I wrote ballads about their failures
,
putting on display their forlorn efforts to all who would listen! But despite my best work, what good did it do? Akilun himself betrays me by his devotion to his Master even when all things were stripped from him. How boldly he marched to his own destruction for the love of a brother who betrayed him. Curse him!” Eanrin squeezed
his eyes shut, though the darkness around him poured into his mind even so. “That constancy in the face of disaster . . . it wounds me to the heart! His faith in his Master makes a mockery of my mockery. Those knights, they are traitors to their own nature in their trueness to their Lord!”

“But you, immortal bard, will be true to your nature. You will not give in to selfless love. You will not give up mastery.”

The Hound approached.

Eanrin screamed to drown the sound of pounding feet, though he knew that when his voice gave out, he would hear it again, only closer. His scream became agonized words.

“How can I give up what I know? I want it all, not just the best but the second best, the moderate, even the squalid. How can I give up everything I have for love?”

“In the end, it's nothing but a pretty story,” said the stranger. A warmth like encircling wings enfolded the poet, deepening the darkness. “Love like that means only one thing: sacrifice. Is that a burden you were meant to bear?”

The poet felt the heat, the close pressure of those wings. “How empty it all is,” he breathed, his lungs inhaling scalding fumes.

“To love is to empty one's Self,” said the Dragon. “To love is to surrender. To love is to lose.”

“I can't,” Eanrin moaned. “I can't.”

The drum of feet, the steady approach, and the Hound drew nearer still. Through the thick shelter of the wings came a glow. But Eanrin could not see it, even as the light increased and revealed the awful contours of those wings, the cruel scales, the hideous leather folds. He could not see, though his eyes were wide open.

“He has driven you to this place of darkness,” hissed the stranger. “Your only hope is Death! He will take you otherwise. Is that what you want?”

“I—”

“You are master of your own world! Do not permit him to take this from you.”

“But my world . . . my world was so silent.” Eanrin thought of the tiny voices shouting out to the darkness but forever alone.

“And yet it was yours! Will you give up your rule for slavery?” The
great wing pushed the poet from behind. “Enter the Dark Water,” the stranger said. “You are at its banks. Enter the Dark Water and sink. He will not pursue you there. It is the last haven you can know!”

Eanrin rose. He took a step. He felt the water lapping at his feet, and he trembled.

“Only this way can you be free,” said the Dragon. “Go! Swiftly! He is even now upon you!”

The light pierced the shade of the Dragon's wings. It pierced into the gloom of Eanrin's spirit and struck like daggers upon his eyes. Scales fell in a steady stream from his face. They hurt as they fell, and he screamed at the pain, his hands catching at the cascade. Sharp edges cut his hands in ribbons of blood.

But his vision cleared.

He looked up. He saw the Dragon. He saw the face of Death-in-Life, a face that had been his close and constant friend through all the lonely generations of his existence. He saw and was astonished by the ghastly visage, the sordid destruction of beauty, of dreams.

And Eanrin saw that he stood on the edge of the Dark Water. A single step, and he would make the plunge.

But the light was all around them, striking through every sense, and with it a Voice, which was also light, more brilliant than the voices of the sun or the moon, for it was the Voice that had taught them to sing. It sang now and drove the Dragon to furious wailing. Eanrin could hear no words, for the cacophony of the Dragon's screams muddled his ears. He shut his eyes, but the light was still there. He fell to his knees on the edge of the water, curling into a ball, but still the torrential battle of sounds and words and voices calling his name battered him on all sides.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the noise ceased. Eanrin found himself kneeling in a great quiet. He realized there were tears on his face. This was a strange, painful sensation. He had never before wept. Not he, the brightest and blithest of his kind. He put up wondering fingers to touch his damp face. Then he sobbed and covered his eyes with his hands, catching his tears until they overflowed onto the ground, dropping into the pile of scales scattered at his feet on the banks of the Dark Water. When at last his sobbing eased and he could look down, he saw
those scales gleaming wetly. And he realized how close he had been to becoming a dragon himself.

Light glowed gently, reflecting off the tears. The scales themselves remained only black. The light was steady, white and pure. For a moment Eanrin glimpsed the face of the Hound. Long and noble, with solemn black eyes surrounded in a golden aura of soft fur. When he blinked, however, the vision was gone.

The Hound was vanished; perhaps he had never been.

But the light remained.

A silver lantern sat before Eanrin, there in the depths of the pit. It was small and delicately wrought, and in its heart glowed a light more potent, more beautiful, more colorful than starlight.

Eanrin recognized it at once: Akilun's lantern, the fabled Asha. A gift from beyond the Final Water, crafted in the realm of the Farthest Shore. Akilun himself had died grasping it in his hands.

“And so I might die,” Eanrin whispered. “So I might lose myself.”

He put out a hand. It glowed with life in the light pouring from that lantern, but it trembled as well. He took hold of the lantern's handle and stood.

A Path appeared at his feet, leading away from the Dark Water.

S
TARFLOWER

O
ATHS
WERE
FORGOTTEN
that day. Even as I watched Elder Darkwing from above the gorge, I could see his new loyalties fading from mind. Battle would have broken out in an instant with all the Crescent warriors gathered in Redclay. I felt the tension mounting behind me as I stood on the gorge edge. I felt the blood heat rising in the men, both my father's loyal warriors and the furious men of the Crescent Lands.

But when Darkwing and his two warriors at last climbed from the gorge—Darkwing with tears staining his face—my father stepped forward and said, “We are dismayed at this loss. I will send men into the forest to find your son.”

Darkwing's eyes flashed. “Murderer,” he snarled. “You are behind this.”

“No,” said the Panther Master. “This is not the doing of any man in Redclay.”

“No. Not any man,” said the elder. Then his gaze fixed upon me and
my sister, standing in the Eldest's shadow. “This is the work of the curse you brought upon the Land!”

I heard the war cries not yet uttered in the men's straining throats. The face of every warrior, though he stood in stoic silence, shouted his desire for battle.

But the Eldest said simply, “My men outnumber yours.”

“Are they yet
your
men in light of this treachery?” cried Darkwing, casting about to all those gathered.

And for a moment, I wondered. I wondered if the time of my death had come, and the deaths of my father and sister. Darkwing's words were like poison among the men. Would they, in light of their master's sin before the Beast and this evidence of the curse's work, turn upon him now? My heart stopped beating. I could scarcely even think of Sun Eagle and his fate. My arms tightened about Fairbird, and she was like stone in my arms.

The Eldest said, “Take your people and go, Darkwing. Mourn for your son as is right. Then we will meet again and see what is to be done.”

Darkwing's hand crept to the dagger at his side but did not touch it. His gaze locked with the Panther Master's. I knew that whatever decision he reached would determine our fates. If he believed he could best my father and made the attack, I did not doubt that half my father's warriors would turn upon us as well.

But the Panther Master did not back down. His face was calm and sad, as though he looked into the future . . . a dreadful future, but one that did not include a battle that day.

Darkwing's hand slowly dropped away from the dagger, then passed across his face as though to wipe away traces of his tears. His shoulders bowed like an old man's as he turned and descended into the gorge. One by one, his men followed. They did not stop to take provisions. They left as swiftly and silently as shadows.

They could not escape our cursed land soon enough.

After that began the dark time. War broke out once more with the Crescent Tribes, more bitter and bloody than before. It lasted late into
the winter, and only in the worst winter months did the men of Redclay return to our village, my father among them. He had not been wounded in the fighting, but his face was that of a dying man. His skin had a yellow cast, and his eyes were hollow. He scarcely looked at my sister or me when he entered his house. He allowed me to feed him and serve him as always, but he did not speak to us. Rarely did he go down to the Long Hall in the village to sit among his warriors.

My mind was a tumult during those months. More than ever, the people of the village avoided me. The village women would not permit Fairbird and me into the fields, and we more often than not lived on whatever I could harvest from the Eldest's garden. Every day I woke afraid, and when I put down my head to rest at night, I thought I heard someone crying up from the gorge. Sun Eagle, far away and lost, a phantom in the darkness:

“Can anyone hear me?”

I would cover my ears and curl into a tight ball upon my pallet, but still his voice would ring in my mind. My father, true to his word, had sent warriors into the forest to search for Sun Eagle. But they had found nothing, not even the other end of the broken rope. He was lost forever. So why did I keep hearing that ghostly cry?

Then one night, deep in the coldest darkness of winter, it stopped, and I never heard it again. That night I made the signs of passing for my betrothed.

“May he walk safely through the void beyond the mountains,” I signed. “And may the Songs sing him to life.”

I could not say exactly what my feelings were at Sun Eagle's loss. Horror. Guilt. Sorrow, I believe. I scarcely knew him. But I think had our lives been otherwise—had I not been a living curse—I might have made him a good wife.

Amid all those other feelings, however, there was one even stronger: relief.

I hated to admit it, but it was true. For now Sun Eagle was gone, I should not marry. And this was best. I knew it could not be long now.

It happened in late winter just on the verge of spring. The warriors were already beginning to gather to prepare for the spring sacrifices before marching off to war. It was the night before they set out on this long pilgrimage to make their blood offerings that we heard the sounds.

Just before sunrise, when the world was still dark but edged with the first gleams of light, I was startled from a restless sleep by frenzied animal screams. It was as though some creature was being torn apart. And rising with the screams of that luckless prey were hideous snarls. I had heard hunting dogs make similar noises, but never like this. I had even heard wolves calling in the night, and on one occasion, the haunting cry of a panther.

But this was unnatural. It was as loud as thunder, and it shook the earth! Whatever made that cry was a monster so great that even the ancient giants trembled in their stone sleep.

The screams of the first animal died, but then another took up its place. Something was among the cattle in one of the far fields, I realized. Something was among the cattle, going through them, slaughtering. Something vast, something the likes of which we had never seen before.

Fairbird lay beside me, her hands over her ears, her mouth open in a silent scream. I gathered her to me, and she, in her terror, pressed her face to my shoulder and bit down upon my gown. Her little teeth tore down to my skin, but I did not move her. I held her close and stroked her back but could not shield her from those unnatural sounds. They carried into the center of our spirits, ravishing all sense of safety or hope.

I knew then with absolute certainty: The Beast was come down from the mountains.

It seemed like hours later before I heard word. My father and his most trusted men ventured out to the far fields. There they found the Eldest's great herd slaughtered. Not a cow was left alive. Not even those calves had been spared that had been isolated in preparation for the spring sacrifices.

The Eldest was stern and seemingly unafraid when he marched with his men back into the village and announced to his people what had
transpired. Everyone had heard the evil sounds. Everyone knew that this could be no natural work, even those of us who had not witnessed the carnage firsthand. No pack of wolves, no matter how large or how vicious, could have made the sounds that had shattered the morning only a few hours ago.

“It is the work of some devil,” declared my father, yet his voice did not shake as he spoke. The sun shone down upon his tired face and made him look once more the strong and noble leader he had always been to his people, a man who would serve the needs of the nation before considering his own.

In all but one point.

I shivered and dared not draw near the crowd but remained out of sight, Fairbird held tightly by the hand. Frostbite had followed us, cringing, her tail tucked. She too was frightened by what she had heard. She was my loyal shadow, however, and would not be left behind.

“It is the work of some devil,” I heard my father say again. “But do not fear. We shall hunt it down! We shall stop this monster before the day is through!”

I watched how the people looked at each other; I saw the disbelief in their eyes. They knew this was not the truth. They knew, as did the Panther Master, though for the moment he refused to admit it.

Suddenly a deep laugh rumbled through the crowd. I watched as people parted, backing away nervously, clinging to each other, men and women, young and old. And through the gap they made, I saw Wolf Tongue.

He strode down the middle of the village, his long wolfskin heavy about his shoulders. He laughed as he came, a cruel, derisive laugh, right in the face of his Eldest. The Panther Master stood like a rock, and I saw the spark of fire in his eyes. I knew, however, that he would not dare strike the High Priest. Even the Eldest may not strike a holy man, especially not one so favored by the Beast.

Wolf Tongue stood before his Eldest, still laughing. When at last he spoke, his voice was low, but silence held the village in such a grip that I knew we all heard every word he said.

“Do not think you can thwart the will of the Beast,” he said. “I've seen it happen before. So have you. Have you forgotten the days of your
grandfather already? Have you forgotten his fate when he too thought to keep from the Beast his due?”

He turned suddenly to the village, his arms outspread. The wolfskin fell back to reveal his naked torso beneath, scarred from many battles. He was a big man, muscular and awful in his history of bloodshed during the many long years he had served his god. I realized then, for the first time, how old Wolf Tongue must be. For he had always been the Beast's High Priest, as long as anyone could remember. Yet his body was that of a warrior in his prime, and his face was both young and old. What an unnatural life he must lead in his close communion with the hideous divine.

“Do not forget!” he cried out to all of us. His voice, like the awful sounds we had heard that morning, seemed to shake the village to its foundations. “Do not forget the horror loosed upon your grandsires when they failed to heed my warning! They called your servant a liar and refused to satisfy the Beast's demands. They refused to give him the woman he required of them. But she belonged, by rights, to your god! Who among you remembers the screams? Who among you remembers the slaughter? I remember as though it were yesterday. I remember mothers wailing, children lying in pools of blood, warriors choking on their own gore. I remember your elder slain, mauled beyond recognition! You remember, do you not, Panther Master?”

He turned once more to my father, and the proud Panther Master shrank under his gaze. Wolf Tongue's words were painting that dark night of long ago across his memory.

“You were there,” said Wolf Tongue. “You were a small child, and you saw the death of your grandfather. You remember.”

He did. I could see how my father crumpled beneath those memories, melting from the powerful warrior into that small, frightened child witnessing things innocent eyes should never be made to see.

“Give the Beast what he asks!” Wolf Tongue's gaze swept out across the village. “Give the Beast what he asks!”