DragonStar almost grated his teeth, then chose to think it carefully through. “Envy consumed me,” he finally said, “and I could not control it.”
“And what broke the spell that Envy had thrown over you?”
“The cat,” Drago whispered. “Unconditional love.”
Katie nodded, and kissed his hand.
Faraday found them sitting on a pillowed bench seat in a window. The view beyond the glass panes was breathtaking: gardens and ponds stretched over several leagues to where the enclosing blue-cliff walls of Sanctuary rose.
“It’s so beautiful,” Faraday said as she sat on the other side of Katie.
DragonStar turned his head from the window and smiled at her over the girl’s head. It is cloying, he wanted to say, but he could not explain his emotions, so he merely nodded.
“What have you two been doing?” Faraday said, sensing the remaining tension.
DragonStar sighed, and indicated the Enchanted Song Book lying on the end of the seat. “I have been playing about with that.”
“And does it tell you what you need to know?”
“Yes,” said Katie, and DragonStar shot her a mildly irritated glance.
“It tells me many things,” DragonStar said, “and all of them uncomfortable.”
Faraday looked between DragonStar and Katie, her face growing more puzzled. She slid her arms about the girl and drew her back into her body, an instinctively protective gesture.
“Can you…we…fight against the Demons with what the Book tells you?” Faraday said.
DragonStar shifted even more uncomfortably. “The Book is filled with the Demons’ hatred and horror,” he said. “I know I should use it…mirror it back to destroy the Demons—”
Faraday felt Katie tremble in her arms, and she glanced down, worried.
“—but it feels so repulsive…so…”
“Whatever it takes to destroy the Demons will surely be taxing,” Faraday said.
DragonStar finally raised his face and looked her full in the eyes. “I am very much afraid,” he said, “that if I use that Book I will turn into a Demon myself. I do not think I will be able to stop myself.”
Chapter 15
The Secrets of the Book
DragonStar tucked the Book under one arm and considered the lizard carefully.
“You stay here for the moment,” he said. “I will be back for you.”
The lizard dropped its head, its emerald and scarlet crest deflating mournfully, and turned away.
Faraday’s mouth quirked. “It is just as well he does not speak.”
“He does not have to.”
“Will you take the hounds, and the horse?”
DragonStar hesitated.
“DragonStar, please, take them.”
He nodded.
“And be careful in Spiredore.”
“I will be more than careful. I will use only its power to transfer myself into the Field of Flowers. I will not enter the tower itself.”
Faraday stared at him, knowing his words were useless bravado. Even if they only used the power of Spiredore to transfer from one location to the next, DragonStar, as any of them, would be vulnerable in that instant they stepped through the doorway.
For in that instant, if they were unwary, or unlucky, or damned by Fate itself, Qeteb could snatch at them. They could only hope that he didn’t spend his entire time wandering the stairwells of Spiredore.
“Not he,” DragonStar said softly. “But he might have any one of his Demons patrolling. Faraday…I will be careful.”
She leaned forward and hugged him, longing for that time when their fight against the Demons was truly over and she and he could find the time to indulge, and relax into, their love. “I hope Caelum can help.”
“And if not he, then there is one other I can turn to,” DragonStar said, but he was gone before Faraday could ask who this “other” was.
She sighed, and sat back on the window bench with Katie. “I am so glad you are safe here,” she said, stroking the girl’s head. “I could not bear it if you were exposed to danger again.”
Katie smiled, and looked away.
DareWing felt a savage glee as he wheeled his Strike Force through the skies above the Field of Flowers.
They were superb.
Death had altered them, but only to give them a greater purpose, and a more lethal desire.
DareWing flew among them, almost lost in the swirl of jewel-bright wings and eyes and the haunting shadows and shapes of their silvery liquid bodies. The members of the Strike Force had lost none of their ability, or their tight discipline.
They wanted to hunt, to fight back, to strike.
And why not? thought DareWing. Stay here, DragonStar had said, until I need you, but DareWing was impatient with the waiting. When was DragonStar returning? In the wasteland there was corruption to be cleared, and DareWing and the Strike Force were doing no good sweeping colourfully through the skies here.
He alighted within the Field, letting his wings relax and trail luxuriously through the poppies and lilies, and looked up to the molten colour swirling above him.
“Come with me,” he whispered, and then DareWing closed his eyes, and thought of the icy drifts of the northern Icebear Coast, the feel of the cold-edged wind sliding through his feathers, the cry of the seagull, the roar of the icebear…
…and they were there, the Strike Force wheeling above him, and crying with wordless voices.
DareWing smiled, and lifted into the air.
DragonStar passed through into the Field of Flowers without incident, and with a considerable amount of relief. Even Belaguez relaxed beneath him as he felt the spring of the flowered field beneath his hooves, and the Alaunt bayed with joy, and bounded among the flowers, snapping at butterflies.
And with every snap of jaw, the butterflies soared drifting into the air a handspan above the hounds, and DragonStar smiled.
He kneed Belaguez forward, letting his body fully relax for the first time in hours, and drank in the beauty about him. The scent, the gently waving flower heads…
…the crash and roar of surf in the distance.
DragonStar halted Belaguez for a moment. He could vaguely discern the smell of salt underlying the scent of the flowers. He let his eyes scan the horizon, stopping at a spot that was hazier than the rest. A coastline.
DragonStar urged Belaguez forward.
He found Caelum sitting at the very edge of a cliff that plunged down hundreds of paces into a foam of rocks and sea spray.
RiverStar sat with him, her arm linked into his, their heads close together as they murmured to each other.
“Caelum? RiverStar?” DragonStar lifted a leg over Belaguez’s withers and slid to the ground. The Star Stallion snorted, then wandered away a few paces to nose among the flowers.
Caelum and RiverStar turned slightly, and smiled at DragonStar.
DragonStar stared, taken not only with their beauty, but at the peacefulness that they radiated.
Neither had been particularly peaceful in life.
Caelum’s smile broadened a little, almost as if he could read DragonStar’s thoughts. “Welcome, brother,” he said. “Will you join us?”
RiverStar said no words, but she stood in one graceful, fluid movement, and took DragonStar’s hand. She pulled slightly, encouraging him to sit with Caelum and herself, but DragonStar baulked.
In life RiverStar had loathed him, goaded him, and taken every opportunity to make his life miserable.
Who was this caring, lovely-spirited woman now standing before him?
RiverStar lifted her free hand and laid it against DragonStar’s cheek.
“In life,” she said, “I was hateful, jealous, and spiteful. But once I passed the gate into the Field of Flowers I entered a state of…of…”
Her brow creased slightly, as if her mind could not quite find the word to describe her state of existence.
“We entered,” Caelum said, “a state of contentedness.
Contentedness not only with our environment, but with ourselves.”
DragonStar nodded slowly, realising the difference in his brother and sister. They were deeply at peace with themselves, because they were contented—a spiritual state rather than an emotional one.
And suddenly he was content as a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. DragonStar’s mind had been worrying at the fact that so many people appeared bored and irritated with the peace of Sanctuary, and he’d worried about how they’d cope with the eternal peace of the Field of Flowers.
Now he understood. When people passed into the Field of Flowers they underwent a spiritual transformation.
And they became content.
Caelum nodded as he understood DragonStar’s realisation. “There are only a few who do not undergo this transformation,” he said. “Those who know that they must return to Tencendor, and those who know they have work unfinished remain impervious to the contentedness of the Field.”
“The Strike Force,” DragonStar said. “They remain vengeful.”
“Aye,” Caelum said. “But come, sit down. We are gladdened to see you again.”
DragonStar smiled, and sat down beside Caelum. RiverStar let go his hand, and stepped back, saying that she would leave them to talk.
“There are flowers I have not yet seen,” she said, her smile so sweet and gentle it made DragonStar’s breath catch in his throat, “and walks yet to be explored. I will see you again, DragonStar, in the days when we will all live in peace in the Field.”
She bent quickly, kissed DragonStar’s cheek, and then she was gone, fading into the weaving, waving lilies.
For a long while Caelum and DragonStar said nothing, relaxing in each other’s company and the scent of the flowers. Behind them, the Alaunt settled down in haphazard groups, stretching out in the sun or grooming each other with long, liquid tongues and gentle nips.
“You have the Enchanted Song Book,” Caelum said finally, glancing at what DragonStar had under his arm.
DragonStar looked down the cliff, fighting a wave of dizziness. He missed so much of his Icarii heritage: the ability to fly, to dance, to sing, and, at the moment, the easy ability to withstand the lure of appalling heights.
“Aye,” he eventually said. “I have the Enchanted Song Book. Caelum…”
“I tried it, you know.”
“I know. Axis told me.”
Caelum turned his eyes from the rolling ocean and looked back at his brother. “You have spoken to our father?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And we are friends, if not father and son.”
Caelum nodded, and let his eyes drift back to the sea. “I wish I had been able to be his friend.”
Something in Caelum’s voice made tears jerk to DragonStar’s eyes. Only a few hours ago he’d been consumed with a fierce and hateful envy for Caelum, and yet here Caelum was expressing, if not envy, then regret, at something DragonStar enjoyed and not he.
“Did father tell you what happened when I tried one of the Songs?”
“You felled a Hawkchild, but were so consumed with hate and rage that you almost…”
“Almost became a Demon myself.”
DragonStar could not help the cold shudder ripple through him. Gods, what was it the Book contained?
“And when you danced before Qeteb?” he said.
Caelum laughed, low and cynical. “I would have done more damage if I’d offered him a flower.”
Something danced at the very edge of DragonStar’s consciousness, but his mind could not catch hold of the thought.
“And what did happen when you met Qeteb in the Maze?” he asked, so softly his voice could hardly be heard above the roar of the surf.
Caelum took a very long time to answer. “I made him laugh,” he finally said. “I made the entire world laugh.”
DragonStar lifted a hand and placed it on Caelum’s shoulder, and the two brothers sat there for a long time, only love, the scent of the flowers, and the bellow of the ocean between them.
DareWing had brought the Strike Force to the northern coast for a particular reason: here the Demons’ influence was likely to be least. Although the demonic hours would affect none of them, DareWing wanted to keep the Strike Force as safe as was possible for as long as possible. The Icebear Coast would also have the least concentration of crazed animals. What DareWing wanted more than anything else was to find a small pack of something that the Strike Force could whet their teeth on. And then a larger pack of something, and one day DareWing wanted to launch the Strike Force at the entire mass of lunacy that milled about the Maze.
First, they would start with the mountains themselves.
“See here?” Caelum said, thumbing through the Book, “this one is of fear, and this one of despair.”
DragonStar studied the Song of Despair, absently converting it to symbol in his mind. “This book is full of everything the Demons have ever projected,” he said, “and I must be the one to let these ‘emotions’ consume me so I may project them back at the Demons.”
“Is that so?” Caelum said, and his voice sounded more than mildly puzzled. Again DragonStar had the feeling that something of immense importance hovered at the very edges of his mind.
“Well, I suppose it must be you,” Caelum continued, “for you are the true StarSon and the wielder of Acharite magic, without which no-one can use this Book.”
DragonStar closed the Song Book and put it to one side. “Caelum, what happened when Qeteb caught up with you?”
Caelum frowned, then his brow cleared. “I cannot remember,” he said, and laughed with relief. “I remember only that the Dance of Death was such an abysmal failure the Demons ridiculed me. Then I remember fleeing through the Maze, and then something happened…I…I fell over, and despaired, thinking that this must have been how RiverStar felt when I killed her. I begged her forgiveness, and then suddenly I was in the Field of Flowers, and I knew no more of Qeteb.”
“Ah,” DragonStar said.
They sat in silence for another while longer, and then DragonStar stirred. “Where is DareWing? He should be here somewhere with the Strike Force.”
“Oh, he grew impatient,” Caelum said, “and thought to save Tencendor all by himself.”
“What!”
“He took the Strike Force,” Caelum said, “and went back into the wasteland. Contentedness is not yet their lot.”
“Gods!” DragonStar wondered what he should do: go rescue DareWing from a situation he might well be able to control on his own, or go see the one person who might truly tell him the secret of the book?
Finally DragonStar got to his feet and whistled Belaguez over, tucked the Enchanted Song Book under his arm and leapt on the stallion’s bare back. Best to make sure about DareWing first.
The Alaunt jumped up, milling about the horse’s legs.
“Come back,” Caelum said, wistfully, and DragonStar nodded, and drew the doorway of light with his sword.
DareWing wheeled above the ruins of Star Finger, the ghostly apparitions of his force dipping and swaying about him. He was lost in his memories of his early years spent in and about the mountain. Now it was broken and destroyed, and would never prove a safe haven for the Icarii race again.
Nothing in Tencendor would, come to that.
“Strike Leader.”
A soft voice above his right wing snapped DareWing out of his reverie.
“What is it?”
There was a silence, and DareWing regretted his sharp tone. “I am sorry. What do you need to tell me, MirrorWing?”
MirrorWing—or the being that had once been MirrorWing—pointed to a canyon below.
“I think someone down there is trying to attract our attention.”
DareWing looked down, and could not stop his exclamation of surprise.
WolfStar thought they’d never see him. Curses! What was wrong with their star-damned eyes?
But then, what were they to start with? The creatures we
re Icarii-shaped, but their bodies were indistinct, almost transparent.
And their wings…WolfStar knew that Enchanters would have committed murder to understand the spells that made these wings glow with such incandescent colour.
WolfStar waved an arm slowly, trying to get them to hurry up. Stars, but every movement was agony! He’d only fallen some twenty or thirty paces—bouncing from rock wall to rock wall—down the chasm before he’d tumbled onto a rock ledge that sloped backwards under an overhang. By the time StarLaughter had sent her merriment—her mad, mad merriment—chasing down the chasm after him, he’d been hidden from view.
And from there WolfStar had painfully, drop by drop, handhold by handhold, clambered to the bottom of the chasm, and then hauled himself along its rock-littered floor until he’d emerged into what passed for sunlight in this northern devastation.
And there he’d lain, thinking over StarLaughter’s words: Caelum not the StarSon? Well, it made sense. The idiot had been useless against Qeteb. WolfStar’s mouth curled in a small smile. The true StarSon was still out there somewhere, still controlling power. And WolfStar knew there was not a man alive he could not manipulate and eventually control. He would regain power again, but first he needed to know who the true StarSon was.
“Who?” he whispered. “Who?” That bitch StarLaughter had distracted him before he could force an answer from her…
He looked up again at the soft sound of wings. Perhaps a score of the Icarii-creatures were now only some fifty paces above him, and dropping fast.
With them was a more conventional Icarii birdman—at least he had a solid enough body, although he was incongruously dressed in a white linen tunic and sandals.
“Well,” WolfStar said, as the group landed about him, “at least you do not seem demon-mad, even if the majority of you look a trifle vitreous. What has happened? Has the loss of the Star Dance bled you of your solidness?”
“Loss of life,” said one, a female by the lightness of her voice, “has made us less fleshy than what we were wont to be.”