“Shade will protect you,” Drago said evenly. “All you must ensure is that your army can access shade during the Demonic Hours—”
“There is no shade between these damned Woods and Carlon!”
“Carry it with you.”
“Carry it with me? Carry it with me? Shall I uproot these trees, then, and carry them with me?”
“A cloth against the sun or moon is all you require, Zared. Perhaps stretched over poles. The most basic of tents, enough to shelter you and your horses.”
“A tent? How am I supposed to get enough material—”
“I can give you what you need to move your army,” Isfrael said.
Zared’s eyes widened. “Do you have a thousand bolts of cloth secreted somewhere?”
“You will be surprised by what I and mine have secreted within these trees.”
Zared almost pressed Isfrael, then realised there was no point. “I thank you,” he said, then looked back to Drago.
“I have spoken as I did through anger,” he said. “Anger and frustration. Drago, Prince of the House of the Stars, I will give you everything I can and then more, but only if you can provide my people this Sanctuary. If I watch them shrivel and die because you are wrong, if I watch this land desecrated into nothingness because you are wrong, then know now that I will curse you for all eternity.”
“If I am wrong, then I will deserve to be so cursed,” Drago said, “and I will embrace it for all eternity. But for now, you will do as I say.”
Zared stared at him, remembering again the all-consuming scent of lilies, and he nodded.
As the meeting broke up, Drago moved to speak with StarDrifter and Zenith.
“Zenith,” he said low, “I need to know what happened in your battle with Niah. How exactly did you expel her?”
Zenith exchanged a glance with StarDrifter, then told Drago of how Faraday had found her in the shadowlands. Moving back towards the Island of Mist and Memory, where lay Niah, Zenith had eventually forced the Niah-soul into the baby girl that the shared body carried.
“And then?” Drago asked.
Zenith took a deep breath, her eyes stricken with the memory. “Then I forced the child from my body, and killed her.”
“And then?” Drago said.
“WolfStar took the corpse,” StarDrifter said, sliding a protective arm about Zenith. “Drago, why push Zenith on this? It is over and done with.”
Drago rubbed his eyes. “No,” he said quietly. “It is only just beginning. WolfStar is in the waterways. He is moving between the craft—with the baby’s corpse.”
“But why?” Zenith said.
“I think he seeks to reconstitute her in the same way that the TimeKeepers look to—”
“No!” Zenith cried.
“And the Demons?” StarDrifter asked. “How is it possible that WolfStar can—”
Drago looked him directly in the eye. “I think the Demons are allowing him to do it. I do not know the ‘why’ of it, but I most certainly do not like it.”
17
The Donkeys’ Tantrum
Leagh walked slowly among the trees, smiling at the groups of soldiers she passed. Sometimes she found it difficult to believe over thirty thousand were sheltered in these Woods. Separated by the trees into small groups, the entire army seemed to merge into the gloom.
She stopped by one lieutenant. “Jaspar, has the Prince Askam passed this way?”
“Through there, my lady.” Jaspar, one of Askam’s command, was not quite sure what to call Leagh. Princess or Queen? What did his allegiance dictate? And who did he owe his allegiance to? Askam…or Zared?
Leagh almost walked off in the direction Jaspar indicated, then paused. “Jaspar, the Prince Drago—” why was it that no-one had thought to accord him his proper title, either? “—has just said something that I think is very pertinent. Tencendor can no longer let petty rivalries and bigotries continue to tear it asunder. If nothing else, Jaspar, give Zared your loyalty because Caelum has asked it of you.”
Jaspar nodded unhappily, and Leagh sighed, and turned away.
She found Askam standing among the horse lines, stroking the neck of his bay stallion.
“Askam?” Leagh walked up and smiled, giving the horse a pat herself. “I think the horses appreciate the gentle rest they find among these trees.”
He didn’t answer her, refusing to even meet her eyes.
“Askam…” Leagh’s voice almost broke, and she had to clear her throat. “Askam, we are tied by blood so close that nothing should come between us. Please—”
He turned to stare at her. “Zared has come between us, sister. You gave him the West when you decided to run away with him and marry him against all wishes. You, only you, denuded me of my heritage.”
Leagh dropped her eyes, burying her fingers in the glossy coat of the horse in an effort to find strength. “I apologise with every beat of my heart for that deception. But Askam…” She raised her eyes, and now they were bright with tears. “Askam, it was what our people wanted, too. Can’t you understand that? Carlon rang with joy when Zared rode in—”
“He must have paid them to—”
“Oh, damn you to everlasting torment in the Bogle Marshes, Askam! No-one can pay for unfeigned joy! It is freely given, not purchased! I struggled for weeks myself, not knowing what to do, thinking that I had betrayed you for love of Zared—”
“You had!”
“—but what he did was not through blind ambition, Askam, but for the people of the Acharite—”
“You are blind, Leagh, to so argue. Gods! The man took you because through you he could gain control of the West. Of Achar. And now? Now he has virtual control of Tencendor while Caelum meditates in Star Finger!”
Askam was shouting now, his hazel eyes furious, his cheeks flushed. “No! What am I saying? That eternal traitor Drago has control of Tencendor. Leagh, I cannot believe what I witnessed there! Everyone from erstwhile Enchanters to the be-twigged Isfrael himself rolled over to let him scratch their bellies. What are they going to do next? Learn to crouch before him and beg for morsels from his plate? What about Caelum for the gods’ sakes? He is the one to whom they owe their ultimate loyalty.”
Leagh tried one last time. “If there is one thing I have learned over the past months, Askam, it is that people will willingly tear out their hearts for a man who will do rather than expect.”
“I expected loyalty,” Askam said flatly, “and I received nothing but treachery. Even from my sister, who I should have been able to trust more than anyone else. But you? You prostituted yourself for a crown.”
Leagh flinched. She tried to think of something to say, then finally turned her back and walked away.
Askam watched her disappear among the trees, then stood by his horse thinking for a long time. Eventually he retraced his steps until he found Jaspar, and the sergeant-at-arms now standing with him.
“My friends,” he said, “I need to have a word with you. It seems we find ourselves among a nest of traitors. If you care for your wife and children, waiting, vulnerable in Carlon, then you will listen well to what I have to say.”
Drago and Faraday did not linger. They told Zared they needed to move north as soon as they could.
“Deal with whatever you find as best you can, Zared,” Drago said.
“And this Sanctuary?”
“I will send word as soon as I can.”
“Do not delay it, Drago.”
“Be prepared, Zared.”
Zared sighed. “Do you need supplies?”
Drago nodded. “I would appreciate it. Who knows what we will be able to scavenge from the plains?”
“Why not stay within the forest for a while?”
“We need to move fast, Zared.”
As do you. The words hung between them, and Zared stared at Drago a moment before moving off.
Drago smoothed his hair with both hands, wishing he had the time and opportunity to bathe and shave. Gods! How many days since he
’d been able to shave? He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin, and grimaced. Enchanted forests were all very well, but Drago truly thought he would gladly bargain one of Faraday’s donkeys for an hour in a marbled and steamy bathroom.
As if in direct response to his thought, there was an indignant bray to one side, and Drago turned to look.
Faraday had gone to harness the donkeys to the blue cart—but with obvious lack of success.
Leather harness lay strewn about the clearing, and the cart itself had somehow lost a wheel and was leaning drunkenly to one side. As Drago watched, it creaked, trembled, and then fell apart completely.
Faraday jumped back, tripped over one of the harness collars lying on the ground, and fell over.
Drago walked over and helped her to her feet. “What’s going on?”
“I…I don’t know!” Faraday raised both hands, then let them fall helplessly to her sides again.
The donkeys had retreated several paces, and were now staring at both Drago and Faraday with patent stubbornness.
For his part, Drago studied Faraday. Over the past two weeks since he’d returned through the Star Gate, he’d never seen her anything but calm and sure of herself. Now her cheeks were flushed, her hair in disarray, and her eyes bright—with tears, Drago realised with a start.
“Faraday?” She jumped as a soft hand fell on her shoulder.
Zenith.
As Drago had done, Zenith stared about her, unable to believe what she was seeing. The donkeys adored Faraday. They had comforted her during the time Faraday had planted out Minstrelsea, and Zenith herself had seen their devotion to the woman on their trip from Ysbadd to the Ancient Barrows.
Zenith looked at Drago, registering his own shock.
“The cart just fell apart,” Faraday said. “It just fell apart!”
“Shush,” Drago said, and took one of her hands between his. “Both cart and donkeys doubtless have their reasons.”
Faraday made a helpless gesture with her other hand, and a tear ran down her cheek.
Drago looked impotently at Zenith.
“And the donkeys kicked at me,” Faraday whispered.
Zenith glanced at her brother, then wrapped an arm about Faraday. “Hush, Faraday. Drago is right. They have their reasons.”
“But to kick!”
Drago dropped Faraday’s hand, not knowing what to do. He watched Zenith rock the woman to and fro, crooning to her, and then heard a step behind him and turned, grateful for the interruption.
Zared, his face puzzled, an eyebrow raised. “Do you want horses, Drago?”
Drago started to nod, then stopped himself. “No,” he said, and wondered why he said that. Why refuse horses? “We will walk. It is what the donkeys want us to do.”
The donkeys relaxed, their ears flopping, and each shifted their weight onto one of their hind legs, resting the other.
The feathered lizard suddenly appeared, investigating the wreckage of the cart. It rippled sinuously between the spokes of one of the wheels, and then disappeared under the tray.
“We will walk,” Drago repeated softly, watching the donkeys.
Faraday walked slowly into the grove. It hardly deserved the name, for it was only some three paces across and four or five deep, but it was beautiful nonetheless, with heavy-scented scarlet brambry bushes and clumps of spiked blue and pink rheannies filling the spaces between the trees.
Isfrael was standing in the shadows at the far end of the grove.
“It has been so long,” Faraday said softly. She felt like weeping. Seeing him standing here within the forest made her remember vividly the betrayal in which he’d been conceived—those glorious eight days with Axis when she’d thought to become his wife, while he’d thought of his mistress, Azhure—and the pain and misery of crawling on her hands and knees across half of Tencendor, her belly heavy with her baby, replanting the forests.
The agony of his birth in the Sacred Groves. The far deeper agony of saying goodbye to the infant to fulfil her destiny in dying for the Prophecy.
Azhure and Axis had raised him. Not Faraday.
Faraday had been left to wander the forest paths as a doe, hating her confinement there, and knowing that she slipped from everyone’s minds, including her son’s. It was difficult to reconcile the knowledge that she’d been relegated to legend, with the need to live…live!…and hold her son for just one day in her arms.
Spending brief hours with him in Niah’s Grove when Isfrael had been a child had not been enough, for either of them.
“Mother,” he said, and took a step forward into a shaft of sunlight.
She drew her breath in. In his own strange way he did remind her of Axis, although his wildness was all Avar. His hair was the same faded blonde, the musculature of his chest and arms…his hands. He had Axis’ hands.
Faraday stared at them, remembering how Axis had touched her, and betrayed her with that touch.
“Why did you leave the forests to walk with Drago?” Isfrael asked.
Faraday walked forward a few steps until she was within a pace of her son. “You know why.”
He nodded. “WingRidge told me who he was. But why did you leave the forests?”
Faraday thought about telling Isfrael of how the Sceptre had pulled her to Drago, and thence to the Ancient Barrows.
She thought of telling Isfrael how Drago had saved her with the Rainbow Sceptre, when Axis had refused to use it to save her from Gorgrael. She thought of telling him about Noah, and her promises to him.
But none of this did she say.
“Because I think I can help,” she said eventually, speaking such a colourless truth it was almost a lie. She dropped her eyes to her hands clasped in front of her.
“So you would walk with Drago,” Isfrael said, folding his arms across his chest, “but you would not walk to my cradle when I was an infant and croon me to sleep?”
“Isfrael, I have hardly had a choice in what—”
“I wish,” Isfrael said, and his voice was wistful, almost tender, through its bitterness, “I wish that just once during my childhood you had been there to rock me to sleep. I wish you had cared that much.”
“I have loved you with all my being—”
“No. No, you cared more for those donkeys than you have for me. No wonder Axis preferred Azhure’s love to yours.”
He paused, and his lip curled slightly. “You have no place in my life, Faraday. As you deserted me as an infant, as you deserted Shra to her death, so now I abandon you.”
And he turned and walked into the trees.
Faraday stood and stared at the spot where he had disappeared, absolutely stricken.
It was not my fault, she wanted to cry, but…but was it her fault? Could she have aided Shra? No, no, there was nothing she could have done.
But the other accusation hurt more, because Faraday felt so guilty about it.
Should she have stayed within the Sacred Grove with her son and let Azhure die in her place? If she had, things would not be much different now, would they? Gorgrael would be here to face the TimeKeepers and Qeteb instead of Axis, and Gorgrael would be as powerless as Axis was.
But the most important factor, Drago, would still be here, because Drago had allied himself with Gorgrael and would have survived the Destroyer’s push into Tencendor.
“What did I accomplish by serving out the Prophecy’s wishes,” Faraday whispered into the empty shaft of sunlight. “Not much at all, really, save for the abandonment of my son. No wonder he curses me.”
She stood for a while longer, the tears coursing freely down her face, and then she walked back the way she had come.
Drago was waiting for her, two packs leaning against his legs.
“Did you say goodbye?” he asked.
Faraday bent down and picked up one of the packs, slipping her arms through the straps and settling it on her back.
“I said goodbye to him forty years ago,” she said, “and that was the only goodbye he cares to
remember.”
Drago studied her face, almost reaching out to her, then he thought better of it and shouldered his own pack. He picked up his staff, made sure his sack was securely attached to his belt, and whistled for the lizard.
It scrambled out of Askam’s sleeping roll where it had chewed several large holes for the sake of self-amusement, and ran towards them.
“North,” Drago said.
18
Shade
After Drago and Faraday had left, Zared went in search of Isfrael. The Mage-King had melded with the shadows when the meeting had broken up, but now Zared needed to know how the man could possibly help him acquire enough shade to move an army westwards.
“Shade!” Zared muttered, striding down one of the forest paths. “Shade! What next? Must I carry my own river with me in case we meet up with a band of renegade Skraelings?”
His mouth quirked at the thought. One of Axis’ main foes during his battle with Gorgrael had been the Destroyer’s army of Skraeling wraiths. They had been fearless of everything but water, and Zared was sure that Axis had managed to clog most of the rivers of Tencendor with the Skraelings’ misty bodies at some point or the other.
“Zared.”
Zared turned. Herme was jogging down the path after him.
“Gods,” the older man panted. “I am glad finally to have caught up with you. Where are you going? I need something to occupy me. This inaction is killing me.”
“Something to occupy you, Earl Herme?”
Zared whipped about. Isfrael—in his irritating, fey way—had appeared on the path before him. Behind him were six or seven Avar women.
“You need shade, Zared?” Isfrael waved at the women behind him. “I bring it.”
Numerous possibilities and images jumbled through Zared’s mind at the thought of just how these women might provide shade…and none of them were repeatable.
“Ah…” he said.
Isfrael grinned, stunning Zared even more. He’d never previously seen the Mage-King grin, but even now, there was something slightly malevolent about the expression.