He did not see it at first, but rather, became aware of a change in the rabbit, still noisily involved in its dying on the bloodstained snow.
It was still screaming—but in triumph, not pain.
Dare Wing stared, and then the looming figure to the south caught his attention.
He looked up, and his breath caught in his throat.
A gigantic serpent wriggled its way through the sky towards them. It had wings, two pitiful feathered contraptions just behind its head, but was flying more through the sinuous undulations of its body than the motion of its wings.
It was grinning.
Dare Wing recognised Sheol instantly. Despair radiated out from her in waves, but underlying the despair was a far more sinister power. Dare Wing knew she would be difficult to deal with.
He breathed deeply, calming himself, then motioned the Wing back to join the rest of the Strike Force.
He stared an instant longer, then flew after them.
Sheol grinned even harder. The pretty flying things, no doubt toys of the StarSon, were afraid.
She redoubled her efforts to reach them.
The translucent, jewel-bright creatures massed above the first of the peaks of the Icescarp Alps, an undulating cloud of colour and silvery nothingness, but Sheol ignored them, concentrating instead on their leader, a dark-visaged and winged man dressed in a ridiculous white tunic and considerably more fleshy than his command.
“Greetings, fool,” said Sheol pleasantly, as she wriggled near. “You must be one of the StarSon’s acquaintances.”
She’d moved very close now, and her form rippled and changed until she resembled a cross between a dragonfly and a fairy.
She was exquisitely beautiful, and exquisitely threatening.
Dare Wing felt flames spread along his wings.
He reflexively panicked, then regained his equilibrium. He could deal with this. He imagined himself plunging into the Iskruel Ocean until the frigid waters closed above his head…
The flames fizzled out, and DareWing soared a dozen paces further into the air.
“Very good,” said the dragon-fairy. “I am impressed. Perhaps I shall just capture you for Qeteb to play with at his leisure.”
Dare Wing’s feathers fell out.
This time he found it harder to control his panic. He beat his de-feathered wings frantically, but without the means to caress the air they could not hold him aloft. DareWing tried to imagine new feathers sprouting along his wings, but he could not hold the image, and he fell through the air towards the ground.
DareWing closed his eyes, and prepared to embrace it. The ground would not harm him, for he did not fear it. He could exist without flight, he had already proved it…
The sound of a choir filled the air, and, distracted, Sheol let her magic waver.
Suddenly DareWing found himself soaring again, his wings whole, and he grinned. “Sheol!” he cried. “Do you like the music?”
And he started to sing himself. It was no enchantment, and had no inherent magic, and no real meaning in its words. Its enchantment and power lay in the emotions it caused to well up in the breasts of both singers and listeners.
It was a song all Icarii sang when they celebrated a particularly blessed event—a marriage of a well-loved friend, or the birth of a child after a difficulty-fraught labour.
It was called Freedom Flight.
Feather drifting
Skyway beckoning
Freedom flight
Never ending.
Sun is burning
Crest is rising
Wings are arching
Soul is soaring.
Child seeded
Hands uniting
Friendship laughing
Love triumphant.
Feather drifting
Skyway beckoning
Freedom flight
Never ending.
Sheol’s eyes widened. “Think that will hurt me?”
DareWing grinned yet more, and waved at the choir behind him, floating in the thermals rising from the black peaks below.
Their singing doubled, if not in volume, then in intensity.
Many among the Icarii were crying with the strength of their emotion—with the strength of their joy.
Sheol hissed, and wriggled back a little. “You cannot hurt me with that!”
“No?” whispered DareWing. “No? What would happen, Sheol, if I could make you sing a verse? Hmm? Would you like to try? Now, come on. You have heard enough to know the words, surely. Come, sing with me…Feather drifting, Skyway beckoning
DareWing flew towards her with a hand outstretched. “Come…Freedom flight, Never ending.”
She snarled, and wriggled further away. “Think that pitiful song will destroy me?”
No, maybe not, DareWing thought, but it is a step in the right direction. And then hope did consume him, and he knew beyond any doubt that DragonStar would find the way to defeat these Demons.
“Get you gone, Sheol,” DareWing snapped, “for you are not welcome here in these wastes.”
She stared, not knowing what to do, wondering if somehow this entire episode was meant to be a preamble to one of the preordained challenges, and, if so, what she should do about it. Then, fortuitously, Qeteb touched her mind.
Come back! Come back! We have a visitor.
“Fool!” Sheol shot at DareWing as a form of goodbye, then she flowed her form back into that of the winged serpent, and retreated back south.
Chapter 19
The Apple
Spiredore deposited Isfrael in the Demons’ den. It surprised him. Somehow Isfrael had expected something truly horrific: a seething atmosphere of flames and acidic smoke filled with the screams of the tormented and the stink of the damned. A chamber furnished with rocks and chasms, and with blood-rusted spikes to embrace welcome and unwelcome visitors alike.
Instead the Demons had constructed for themselves a boudoir of pleasantness. There was a circle of apple trees, stunted, true, but sweetly fruited nevertheless, and an inner circle of stumps each topped with a tasselled violet or scarlet cushion. Overhead spread a sky that was only mildly stained with grey-streaked clouds.
The only aspect that was truly unpleasant was the torn and half-eaten body of a dog that lay to one side (possibly the remains of a picnic) and, of course, the Demons themselves.
They each stood between and very slightly behind the apple trees. A silent, watchful semicircle. Four were clad in pastel robes of varying hues, their faces bland, their eyes glowing like gems.
Qeteb had not varied his dull black armour, and trailed his metalled wings on the ground behind him in a parody of the Icarii gesture of welcome.
When he stepped forward, as he did now, they gouged great wounds into the earth.
“And you are…?” he inquired. He stopped just under one of the apple trees. As Qeteb moved, Isfrael could see that behind him lay the form of the Niah-woman. She was arranged neatly, her legs straight, her arms at her side, her eyes gazing upwards without thought or warmth.
Isfrael walked forward until he stood just before the inner circle of stumps. Qeteb was directly across the clearing from him.
“My name is Isfrael,” he said, “and I am Mage-King of the Avar, Lord of the Forests.”
One of the other Demons, the female, smirked, and Qeteb make a quick gesture to stop her laughing.
“Lord of ashes only,” Qeteb said, and took another step forward, “and Mage-King of nothing but a pack of huddled prisoners.” His voice harshened. “What do you here?”
“I have come to deliver you the Sanctuary and all its fodder,” Isfrael said. He relaxed slightly. This was going to be easier than he thought.
“Ah,” Qeteb said, “a traitor.”
“And how,” said Sheol, “can we possibly trust a traitor?” She had sidled forward until she stood just at Qeteb’s left shoulder.
“I can see that a new world beckons,” Isfrael said, “and I merely want to carve out my own niche w
ithin it.”
Qeteb laughed, but it was Barzula, Demon of Tempest, who spoke. “And now we have hit the heart of it, eh? You want something from us, and to obtain it you are prepared to sell us Sanctuary.”
“I am prepared to sell you victory,” Isfrael said softly.
“We do not need your help!” Qeteb said, but all the Demons shared the one thought.
Had DragonStar grown stronger than when they’d last spotted him’? Sheol’s news of what DareWing’s bravado had done had been more than unsettling, and his disinclination to use any of the Enemy’s Songs was…almost frightening.
He had made no mistakes, and the Demons did not like that at all.
“You need all the help you can get,” Isfrael said. “Only fools refuse aid. I am prepared to sell you the assurance of victory.”
“We do not need your—”
“You are a fool!” Isfrael shouted, and strode through the circle of stumps until he stood directly before Qeteb. “You’ve been trapped before, why can’t it happen again? Why can’t it go one step further?” He stabbed a finger into the centre of Qeteb’s chest plate. “What if this land is to prove your grave, Qeteb, rather than your playground?”
Qeteb hissed. “I have learned and grown the stronger for my captivity!”
“And what if the Enemy has, too?” Isfrael countered, his voice quiet, his eyes steady. “What if the Enemy has, too?”
The Demons were silent, although Barzula, Raspu and Mot had crept forward until they’d joined Sheol just at or behind Qeteb’s shoulders. What if the Enemy had, too?
“What do you want,” said Qeteb.
“The Sacred Groves,” Isfrael said, “and peace within them.”
“The Sacred Groves?” Sheol said. “What are they?”
“The Sacred Groves are the most holy glades and forests of the Avar people—”
“We did not destroy them?” Qeteb said, his voice combining both anger and puzzlement.
Isfrael dared a slight sneer. “You know none of the secrets of this land, Qeteb, and there are many spaces still hidden you have not even dreamed of yet.”
Behind his visor Qeteb smiled. He could play this idiot like a lute. So, there were other spaces still to be explored and hunted for fodder, were there? And you, with your foolish bravado, he thought, are going to lead us to them all, like it or not.
But he kept the angered puzzlement in his voice, and twitched his fists, to make it all the more convincing.
“Spaces?” he roared.
You metalled oaf, Isfrael thought, the dullness of your armour has spread to your brain. “I want the Sacred Groves,” he said. “I want them in peace. You can have everything else.”
“The Groves must be very special to you,” Sheol said, and she made her voice wistful.
“They contain all that is holy and precious to the Avar peoples,” Isfrael said. “The Horned Ones, the Mother—”
Sheol raised her eyebrows questioningly, and Isfrael was foolish and dull-brained enough himself to fall into the trap.
“The Mother is the personification of all nature,” Isfrael said, and the Demons instantly hungered, “while the Horned Ones are the most powerful of our Banes, transformed over the centuries into forms close to that of the stag, our sacred animal.”
And all this sounds like good eating, Qeteb mind-shared with his companion Demons. I am sick of cockroaches and sheep.
Imagine the power we would gain from such a meal! Sheol whispered among their minds.
“You want the Sacred Groves,” Qeteb said, “but what are you prepared to give us?”
“The secrets of the Enemy,” Isfrael said, and watched in satisfaction as those of the Demonic faces he could actually see stilled in amazement. “Did you know that you have among you,” and he indicated the form of Niah still lying behind the trees, “a weapon so powerful that you could destroy the StarSon with it?”
“Her?” Qeteb said, and this time he did not have to feign the puzzlement. “Her?”
“Promise me,” Isfrael said. “Promise me the Groves.”
“Of course,” said Qeteb. “Of course. You have them. In peace, forever and ever. Amen.”
“I need assurance,” Isfrael said. “I need proof of your goodwill.”
Qeteb laughed, low and uncomfortable. “And you shall have it.” He leaned backwards, brushing aside Sheol and Raspu, and plucked an apple from one of the trees.
“Take this apple and eat of it,” Qeteb said, “and you will know my sincerity.”
Isfrael stared at the fruit. “An apple?”
“Assuredly. Eat of it, and you shall eat of knowledge. You will know if I lie or not.”
“And the Sacred Groves will be yours,” whispered Mot.
“Forever,” whispered Sheol.
“And ever and ever,” echoed Barzula.
Isfrael took the apple and weighed it in his hand. It felt warm, heavy, inviting.
He could see himself wandering the paths of the Sacred Groves, safe, contented…powerful.
He did not know that in the instant he’d taken the apple the Demons could penetrate the inner spaces of his mind.
Although they could not see details, they could see that he did indeed have a powerful secret regarding the Niahwoman, but they could also understand that there were other secrets in there…other amusements…
Isfrael was still caught in his vision. The Mother walked by his side, not a god at all but a companion. She was asking his advice, and listening gratefully to his answers.
Qeteb saw a glimpse of what Isfrael wanted, perhaps more than anything else, and the vision altered slightly for the Mage-King…
And Shra walked by his other side. She had transformed as did all female Banes when they died, and now she awaited him in the Sacred Groves. She waited for him…
Isfrael lifted his hand and took a bite of the apple—
The Demons screamed with silent triumph.
—and realisation that the Demons did speak the truth flooded his being. They would help him to the Sacred Groves, and there they would leave him in peace, and all for the price of a piece of information that they would surely have figured out sooner or later for themselves.
Peace, power, and all for the tiniest of prices. Isfrael could hardly comprehend his good fortune.
Qeteb grinned, malevolent with exultation behind his mask. The apple always did the trick.
“Let me tell you about the Niah-woman,” Isfrael whispered. “She is a treasure you can hardly comprehend. It all has to do with Acharites and death…”
And Isfrael talked, the words tumbling out and falling over themselves. All Acharites carried the seeds of Enemy magic within themselves. Only those who’d come back through death could use it. Niah, if only she could speak and think, was a weapon that could breach the walls of Sanctuary, and perhaps could be thrown at the StarSon himself.
“Was that worth the Sacred Groves?” Isfrael finished. “Was it?”
“Oh, assuredly,” Qeteb said, and his voice quivered with triumph.
The StarSon was his!
“I can’t get to the Groves by myself,” Isfrael said, desperate now that the Demons had their information to receive his payment. “I need your power to breach the defences that the Mother has placed around them.”
“But how can we—” Qeteb started.
“All I need is power,” Isfrael said. “Surely you must be more powerful than the Mother? Just create that small rent for me, and I will pass through, and then I can seal the fissure from the other side.”
Qeteb glanced at his companions, and they all remembered the strange bowl that one of the Hawkchilds had found. It was of great magic, and StarLaughter—and curses that she had not yet been found!—had said it was of Avar magic.
Without a spoken word, but with mutual agreement, Qeteb lifted a hand and gestured at the sky.
A round-shaped object spun down, and Qeteb caught it in a hand.
“Tell me about this bowl,” he said to Isfrael.
>
Isfrael’s face brightened with excitement. “That is my mother’s bowl!”
“And its significance is…” Qeteb said patiently.
“It does many things, but one of its main purposes was to allow my mother to travel to and from the Sacred Groves.”
“Do you know how to use it?”
Isfrael stared at the bowl, then raised his eyes to Qeteb’s mask. “Yes. I can use it, but I will need your power added to the power of the bowl so that I can propel myself into the Groves. And…one more thing.”
I do hope your flesh is going to be sweet enough for all the trouble you are causing me, Qeteb thought, but he answered pleasantly enough. “Yes?”
“I take the bowl with me,” Isfrael said. And then I shall be safe for all time! he thought.
“But of course,” Qeteb said. “I would not dream of keeping it.”
And even his visor seemed to smile reassuringly.
Isfrael relaxed with complete relief. “My people are in Sanctuary—” he began.
“No,” said Qeteb. “No. They were not part of your original bargain.”
“But—”
“No!”
Isfrael subsided. The Avar had abandoned him after all. And even then he had tried to save them. He’d done his best. He had. He really had. Now he should concentrate on saving what was left.
“Very well,” he said, and reached out for the bowl.
Isfrael may not have been told of the exact way in which Faraday had used the bowl to reach the Sacred Groves, but he was Mage-King of the Avar, instructed and expert in all of their secret arts. He knew the bowl for what it was: a conduit, a means of entering the Groves either when all other means were closed, or, as in Faraday’s case, by a person who normally would not have the power or the knowledge to access the secret paths.
The Mother had forgotten the bowl when She’d closed the paths. She’d forgotten that She’d left the back door open.
And here it was, Isfrael thought, in the hands of the Demons. The silly Bitch, She needed him there to guide Her. Why, if he hadn’t come along, the Demons would have accessed the Groves for themselves! The Mother was fortunate indeed that he was here to save Her and all who still dwelt within the Groves.