StarMan (4 page)

Jayme whimpered softly again, so horrified he could not move. His eyes remained glued to the terror in the reflection.

Nothing in his life could have prepared him for this, and yet he knew precisely what it was.

Artor, come to exact revenge for the failings of the Brother-Leader of his Seneschal.

"Beloved Lord," Jayme croaked.

In the reflection Jayme saw the wall ripple and a form bulge through, taking the shape of the icon Jayme had scratched in the plaster days ago.

It was too much, and Jayme screwed shut his eyes in terror.

Have you not the courage to face Me, Brother-Leader? Have you not the courage to face your Lord?

Jayme felt a powerful force seize control of his body. Suddenly he was spun around and slammed back against the window; he retained only enough power over his muscles to keep his eyelids tightly closed. Some part of his mind not yet completely numbed with terror hoped that Artor would use too much force and the window panes would crack behind him, allowing him to fall to a grateful death on the cobbles below.

But Artor knew His own power, and Jayme did not hit the glass with enough force to break it.

He was held there, his feet a handspan off the floor, and none of the crowd celebrating Axis and Azhure's marriage spared so much as a glance above to see Jayme pinned against the window as effectively as a cruel boy will pin an ant to a piece of paper.

The great god Artor the Ploughman completed His transformation and stepped into the room. He was stunningly, furiously angry, and His wrath was a terrible thing to behold. Jayme had failed Him. The Seneschal was crumbling, and soon even those fragments that were left would be swept away in the evil wind that blew over the land of Achar. Day by day Artor could feel the loss of those souls who turned from the worship of Artor and the Way of the Plough to the worship of other gods.
He
was the one true god, He
demanded
it, and Artor liked it not that those gods He had banished so long ago might soon walk this land again.

Jayme had failed Artor so badly and so completely that the god Himself had been forced from His heavenly kingdom to exact retribution from Brother-Leader Jayme for his pitiful failure to lead the Seneschal against the challenge of the StarMan.

What have you done, Jayme?

Jayme shuddered, and found that Artor had freed those muscles he needed to speak with. "I have done my best, Lord," he whispered.

Meet My eyes, Jayme, and know the god that you promised to serve.

Jayme tried to keep his eyes tightly shut, but the god's power tore them open - and Jayme screamed.

Standing before him was a man-figure, yet taller and more heavily musclebound than any man Jayme had ever seen before. Artor had chosen to reveal Himself in the symbolic attire of the ploughman: the rough linen loincloth, the short leather cape thrown carelessly over His shoulders, its hood drawn close about Artor's face, and thick rope sandals. In one hand Artor held the traditional goad used to urge the plough team onwards; the other hand He had clenched in the fist of righteous anger.

Underneath the leather hood of His cape Artor had assumed the heavy, pitted features of a man roughened by years of tilling the soil, while His body was roped with the thick muscles needed to control the team and the cumbersome wheeled plough.

And underlying this immensely powerful and angry physical presence was the roiling fury of a god scorned and rejected by many of those who had once served Him.

Artor's eyes glittered with black rage.
Daily My power diminishes as the Seneschal crumbles into
dust. Daily the souls of the Acharites are claimed by other, less deserving gods. For this I hold you
responsible.

"I could not have foreseen -" Jayme began, but Artor raised the goad menacingly above His head and took a powerful step forwards, and Jayme fell into silence.

The power of the Mother threatens to spill over into this land as the bitch you failed to stop prepares to sow the seeds of the evil forest across Achar. The Star Gods now threaten to spread their cold light through this land again.

"I had not the knowledge or the power to stop these gods of whom you speak -"

Yet you incubated the egg that would hatch the traitorous viper. You nursed the viper to your - toMy

-
bosom! You raised him, you taught him, you gave him the power and the means, and then you
turned him loose to destroy all that I have worked to build.

"Axis! I could not have known that he -"

As
the Brotherhood of the Seneschal falls to its knees so the worship of the Plough fades and I
grow weak. Long-forgotten gods seek to take My place and banish Me from this land.

"Give me another chance and I will try to —"

But Artor did not want to hear empty excuses or useless promises. His judgment was final.

/
shall seek out among those remaining to find one who will work My will for me. One who is
still loyal. One who can steer the Plough that you have left to wheel out of control. Die,
Jayme, and prepare to live your eternity within My eternal retribution. Feel My justice, Jayme!Feel
it!

As Artor stepped forward, Jayme foiind breath enough for a last, pitiful shriek.

JThe guard standing outside the door thought he heard a cry, and he started to his feet. But the next moment a burst of fireworks lit the night sky and the guard relaxed, smiling. No doubt the noise had been the echo of the street celebrations below.

Another burst of fireworks exploded, drowning out the screams from the chamber as Artor exacted his divine retribution.

Faraday and Embeth, almost a league into the Plains of Tare, paused and looked back as.the faint bursts of the fireworks reached them.

"He has married her," Faraday said tonelessly, "and now the people celebrate."

She turned the head of the donkey and urged it eastwards.

Later that night, when the guard checked his prisoner, all he discovered was a pile of plaster by the far wall and a bloodf body lying huddled underneath the locked window.

It looked suspiciously like...well, like it had been ploughed.

The Song for Drying ClothesRestoration of the royal apartments in the ancient palace of Carlon had been going on since Axis had defeated Borneheld, but the workmen doubled their efforts in the days after Axis married Azhure. Helping them - else how could so much work have been accomplished in so short a time? -were twelve of the best Icarii Enchanters who discovered the ancient lines and colours hidden behind a thousand years of veilings, and who directed the workmen and sewing women in the best and simplest ways to redecorate the chambers to suit the StarMan and the Enchantress.

The Icarii were amazed by the news that the Enchantress' ring had resurfaced to fit snugly on Azhure's finger - and yet, they said among themselves, who better to wear both ring and tide than the woman who already commanded the Wolven and the Alaunt
and
the heart of the StarMan? Those who had seen her in the past few days had noted how the promise of strange power lay in the shadows of her eyes, and they wondered whether the ring had placed that power there, or whether the power released during her ordeal of her wedding day had called the ring to her.

None, whether Icarii or human, doubted that Azhure was a figure who could be as powerful as the StarMan, a legend in her own right.

Now Axis, Azhure and StarDrifter sat in their living chamber, Caelum playing quietly in a corner. On two walls

windows stretched from the floor to the foot of a great jade dome, gauzy curtains billowing in the cool breeze of late afternoon. They had been there for some hours, and Azhure was clearly tired. Axis turned from her and addressed his father.

"These rooms are of Icarii origin, StarDrifter, and the Chamber of the Moons is obviously patterned on the Star Gate. How so? I thought Carlon an entirely human affair."

StarDrifter, sprawled on his belly across a couch some paces away, his wings spreading across the floor on either side, shrugged his shoulders.

"The Icarii had to live somewhere, Axis. In the time of Tencendor gone, both human and Icarii must have lived in Carlon - it is a very ancient city."

He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Both Axis and Azhure, wingless, wondered at StarDrifter's grace in rolling completely over without entangling himself in his wings.

"I have no doubt that Carlon would have been a popular residence for Icarii, Axis," StarDrifter continued, "as close as it is to the sacred Grail Lake and Spiredore." He paused, his face dreamy. "One could lift directly from those windows into the thermals rising off the great plains."

Azhure smiled briefly at Axis. StarDrifter looked far too lazy to do anything more than loll about the chamber. Her smile died as she shifted uncomfortably and pushed a pillow into the small of her back -

every day the unborn twins grew larger and more cumbersome.

Axis looked at her, concerned.
We have tired you, beloved. '

"No," she said, although both StarDrifter and Axis could see the exhaustion tugging at her eyes. "No, I want to try again. Please, one more time before you go back down to your army."

Axis had belatedly realised how much time had elapsed since his defeat of Borneheld, and he was in the process of organising a force to speed northwards to bolster the defences of Jervois Landing. Every hour brought them closer to autumn and Gorgrael's inevitable attack.

StarDrifter sat up, as concerned as Axis was with Azhure's condition. Faraday had obviously healed her back (and how much more desirable the woman was with her back clean and smooth and aching to be stroked, StarDrifter thought), but Azhure remained very weak from both the physical and emotional battering she had been forced to endure four days ago. Neither Axis nor StarDrifter was prepared to argue with Faraday's prediction that Azhure would have to rest until the birth of her children.

And yet how desperately I will need her against Gorgrael, Axis thought. How desperately I need her skill with both bow and command, her Alaunt, and her power. I can ill afford to lose her to a drawn-out recovery over the next few months. But how much less can I afford to lose her to inevitable death should I push her too hard now? Axis was still trying to come to terms with his guilt, not only over the events of a few days ago, but also over the fact that, unknown to him, Azhure had fought through the dreadful Battle of Bedwyr Fort while encumbered with such a difficult pregnancy. His hand tightened about hers as he realised his good fortune that Azhure had managed to survive the past weeks at all.

"Please," Azhure said. "One more time." She raised her free hand to brush some strands of hair from her forehead, and the Enchantress' ring glittered in the golden light of late afternoon.

Today was the first time Axis and StarDrifter had tried to teach Azhure the use of her Icarii power -

but all in the room had been disheartened with the results, including Caelum who, wide-eyed, had watched the proceedings from his corner.

StarDrifter moved to a stool close to Azhure's side, remembering, in comparison, how easy he and MorningStar had found Axis to train. Azhure's father, WolfStar, must not have spent the time or the trouble training her as he had the young Axis. She had been completely ignored by WolfStar, and StarDrifter smouldered with anger thinking how WolfStar had abandoned Azhure to her awful fate in Smyrton.

As StarDrifter and MorningStar had once done for him, Axis now cupped Azhure's face gently in his hands.

"Hear the Star Dance," he said.

"Yes," she replied, barely audible.

At least hearing the Star Dance had been as easy for Azhure as it had for Axis - but then she had been hearing it for some time without being aware of what it actually was. Every time Axis had made love to her she'd heard it; sometimes when she had suckled Caelum; sometimes when she stood at an open window and let the wind rush about her; oftentimes at night when she dreamed of distant shorelines and the tug of strange tides at rocks and sand.

But Azhure also heard the Dark Music, the Dance of Death, the music renegade stars made when they left their assigned courses. Neither Axis nor StarDrifter, nor any other Icarii Enchanter, could routinely hear that music, although they recognised it if it was wielded by someone else. StarDrifter had heard its echo in the Chamber of the Moons the night Axis had battled Borneheld. Axis had witnessed two of the SkraeBolds use it at the gates of Gorkentown, and both he and StarDrifter recognised its presence the morning Azhure had used Dark Music to tear the Gryphon apart atop Spiredore.

Now Azhure put the ghastly discordant sounds of the Dark Music to the back of her mind and concentrated on the supremely beautiful Star Dance. All Icarii Enchanters wielded the power of the Star Dance by weaving fragments of its power into more manageable melodies, Songs, each with their own specific purpose.

Axis and StarDrifter had been trying to teach Azhure one or two of the more simple Songs. Songs so simple that all Icarii training as Enchanters mastered them within an hour or two. But they had been trying to teach Azhure for almost five hours now, and she had failed to grasp a single phrase.

Azhure closed her eyes and concentrated on the Song that Axis sang slowly for her. It was a Song for Drying Clothes, a ridiculously easy song requiring only the tiniest manipulation of power, yet it seemed totally beyond her ability.

Axis finished, and both he and StarDrifter held their breath.

Relax, beloved. It is a simple Song. Sing it for me.

Azhure sighed and began to sing. Axis and StarDrifter winced. Her voice was harsh, utterly toneless, and completely lacking any of the musical beauty that had, until now, come instinctively to any of Icarii blood, whether they were Enchanters or not.

Axis remembered how Azhure had tried to join in the songs about the campfire on their trip down through the Icescarp Alps for the Beltide festivities. Then her voice had also been as completely toneless, as gratingly harsh, but Axis had felt sure that now that the block concealing Azhure's true identity and power had been removed her musical ability would naturally surface.