It was Faraday, looking well and rested.
“Faraday?” Zenith said. “How are you? Is Drago still in the cart? What happened at—”
“Shush,” Faraday said, and sat down beside Zenith. “I have slept the night through, and Drago still sleeps. Now,” she took a deep breath, and her body tensed, “let me tell you what happened in the Chamber of the Star Gate.”
Zenith sat quietly, listening to the horror of the emergence of the children—but children no longer, more like birds—and of StarLaughter and the undead child she carried, and then of the appalling evil of the Demons.
“Oh, Zenith,” Faraday said in a voice barely above a whisper. “They were more than dreadful. Anyone caught outside of shelter during the times when they hunt will suffer an appalling death—and a worse life if they are spared death.”
She stopped, and took Zenith’s hand, unable to look her in the face.
“Zenith, the Demons destroyed the Star Gate.”
Zenith stared at Faraday, for a moment unable to comprehend the enormity of what she’d just heard.
“Destroyed the Star Gate?” she repeated, frowning. “But they can’t. I mean…that would mean…”
Zenith trailed off. If the Star Gate was destroyed that would mean the sound of the Star Dance would never filter through Tencendor, even if the TimeKeeper Demons could be stopped.
“No,” Zenith said. “I cannot believe that. The Star Gate can’t be destroyed. It can’t. It can’t!”
Faraday was weeping now. “I’m sorry, Zenith. I…”
Zenith grabbed at her, hugging her tight, and now both wept. Although Zenith had known that the approach of the Demons meant that the Star Dance would be blocked, she had not even imagined that the Demons would actually destroy the Star Gate on their way through.
There was not even a hope for the Dance to ever resume.
“Our entire lives without the Dance?” Zenith whispered. “Even if we can best these Demons, we will never again have the Star Dance?”
Faraday wiped her eyes and sat up straight. “I don’t know, Zenith. I just don’t.”
“Faraday…did you see StarDrifter at the Star Gate?”
“No. I am sorry, Zenith. I don’t know where he is…but I am sure he is safe.”
“Oh.” Zenith’s face went expressionless for a moment. “And the Sceptre?” she finally said.
“That, at least, is safe.” Faraday looked back to the cart. “But transformed, as is everything that comes through the Star Gate. Come. It is time to wake Drago up. There are some clothes for him in the box under the seat of the cart, and we all need to eat.”
“And then?”
“Then we go find Zared, make sure he is well.”
“And then?”
Faraday smiled, and stood, holding out her hand for Zenith. “And then we begin to search for a hope. Come.”
Despair and then, as night settled upon the land, terror swept over Tencendor, but it left him unscathed. He was lost in his dreams, and the Demons could not touch him. He shuffled from leg to leg, trying to ease his arthritic weight, but none of it helped. He wished death would come back and take him once more.
His head drooped. He’d thought to have escaped both the sadnesses of life and the crippling pains of the body. If he hoped hard enough, would death come back?
4
What To Do?
The might of Tencendor’s once proud army now stood in groups of five or six under the trees of the northern Silent Woman Woods, eyes shifting nervously. Some members of the Icarii Strike Force preferred to huddle in the lower branches of the trees, as if that way they could be slightly closer to the stars they had lost contact with. Thirty thousand men and Icarii adrift in a world they no longer understood.
Their leader, StarSon Caelum, walked slowly about, the fingers of one hand rubbing at his chin and cheek, his eyes sliding away from the fear in his men’s faces, thinking that now he knew how Drago must have felt when his Icarii powers had been quashed.
There was nothing left. No Star Dance. No enchantment. Nothing. Just an emptiness. And a sense of uselessness so profound that Caelum thought he would go mad if he had to live beyond a day with it.
“Faraday said she would join us here,” Zared said, watching Caelum pace to and fro. He sat on a log, his hands dangling down between his knees, his face impassive.
“And you think she can help us against this…this…?” Caelum drifted to a halt, not sure quite what to call this calamity that had enveloped them.
“Can you?”
Caelum spun about on his heel and walked a few paces away.
“We can do little, Caelum, until we hear from Faraday.”
“Or my parents.”
“Or your parents,” Zared agreed. He paused, watching Caelum pace about. He did not care for the loss that Caelum—and every other Enchanter—had suffered. They relied so deeply on their powers and their beloved Star Dance, that Zared did not know if they could continue to function effectively without it. Caelum was StarSon, the man who must pull them through this crisis—but could he do it if he was essentially not the same man he had been a few weeks ago? How could anyone who had previously relied on the Star Dance remain effective?
Maybe Axis. Axis had been BattleAxe, and a good BattleAxe, for years before he’d known anything about the Star Dance.
And yet hadn’t Axis said that even when he’d thought himself human, mortal, he’d still subconsciously drawn on the Star Dance? Still used its power and aid?
Well, time would tell if Icarii blood was worth anything without the music of the Star Dance.
At the moment, Zared had his doubts. He would gladly trade Tencendor’s entire stock of useless Enchanters and SunSoars for the hope Faraday offered.
Suddenly sick of watching Caelum pacing uselessly to and fro, Zared stood and walked over to where Herme, Theod, DareWing FullHeart and Leagh were engaged in a lacklustre game of ghemt.
Leagh looked up and smiled for him as he approached, and Zared squatted down by her, a hand on her shoulder.
“How goes it, Leagh?”
“She wins,” Herme replied, “for how can we,” his hand indicated his two companions, “allow such a beautiful woman to lose?”
Leagh grinned. “My ‘beauty’ has nothing to do with the fact, my good Earl Herme, that I am far more skilled than you.”
All the men laughed, and threw their gaming sticks into the centre of the circle scratched into the dirt before them.
Zared touched Leagh’s cheek softly, then looked to DareWing. “My friend, I wonder if I might ask something of you?”
The Strike Leader inclined his head. “Speak.”
“Faraday told us that there were certain times of the day when it would be dangerous to go outside, times when the Demons would spread their evil. DareWing, I need to know when exactly these times are.”
“Dawn, dusk, mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and night,” Theod said. “This we know.”
“Yes, but we need to know more specifically. If we know exactly when it is safe for us to roam abroad, then we will have a better idea of how to counter these Demons…or at least, when we can try to do so. Besides, somehow we will have to rebuild life around,” he paused, his mouth working as if he chewed something distasteful, “our new-found restrictions. We need to know when it is safe to live.”
DareWing nodded. “I agree…but how?”
“Can you station members of your Strike Force, perhaps twenty at any one time, along the south-west borders of the Silent Woman Woods? They will be safe enough if they remain among the trees, and perhaps they can observe…observe the behaviour of those still trapped in the open.”
DareWing nodded, agreeing with the location. The south-west border of the Woods would be close to Tare, an area more highly populated than the northern or southern borders of the Woods. If they needed to observe, that would give them their best possible chance.
“The more we learn,” he said, “the more hope we have.”
/>
“You do not want any of our men stationed there?” Herme asked quietly.
“My friend,” Zared said. “I ask only the Icarii because they can move between the border and back to our placement faster than can human or horse legs.” He stood up. “I profess myself sick at not knowing how to react, or what to do next. Until Faraday returns we must do what we can.”
DareWing rose to his feet, nodded at Zared, and faded into the gloom of the forest.
Fifteen paces away Askam sat with his back against a small sapling, his eyes narrow and unreadable as he watched Zared move to talk quietly with Caelum.
His mouth thinned as he saw Caelum nod at Zared’s words and place a hand briefly on the King’s shoulder.
After three days of observation, they had a better idea of the span of the Demonic Hours. From dusk to the time when the sun was well above the horizon was a time of horror, the time when first Raspu, then Rox and finally Mot ruled the land. Pestilence, terror and hunger roamed, and those few who were caught outside succumbed to the infection of whichever Demon had caught them. After the dawn hour there were three hours of peace, a time of recovery, before Barzula, tempest, struck at mid-morning.
Although the occasional storm rolled across the landscape during Barzula’s time—whirlwinds of ice or of fire—the scouts reported that the primary influence of the tempest appeared to occur within the minds of those caught outside. Once Barzula’s hour had passed and he had fed, there was again a time of peace (or, rather, a time of frightful anticipation) for some four hours until Sheol struck at mid-afternoon. Again, an interval of three hours when it was safe to venture outside, then the long hours of pestilence and terror through dusk and night.
The precise time span of the Demonic Hours were marked by a thin grey haze that slid over the land from a point to the east, probably the location of the Demons themselves. It was a sickening miasma that carried the demonic contagion with it, lying over the land in a drifting curtain of madness until it dissipated at the end of the appointed time.
“And those caught outside?” Zared asked softly of the first group of scouts to report back.
“Some die,” one of the scouts said, “but most live, although their horror is dreadful to watch.”
“Live?”
The scout took a moment to answer. “They live,” he finally said, “but in a state of madness. Sometimes they eat dirt, or chew on their own excrement. I have seen some try to couple with boulders, and others stuff pebbles into every orifice they can find until their bodies burst. But many who live past their first infection—and those dangerous few hours post-infection when they might kill themselves in their madness—wander westwards, sometimes north-west.”
The scout paused again, locking eyes with his fellows. Then he turned back to Zared and Caelum. “It is as if they have been infused with a purpose.”
At that Zared had shuddered. A purpose? To what end? What were the Demons planning?
But the scouts had yet more to report. One group had also seen seven black shapes running eastwards across the Plains of Tare towards the Ancient Barrows. Horses they thought, but were not sure. Above them had flown a great dark cloud…that whispered.
No-one knew quite what to make of it.
“We have roughly three hours after dawn, four hours between mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and then another three hours before dusk,” Zared said to Caelum and Askam on the third morning since they had taken shelter in the Woods.
“Time enough for an army to scamper from shelter to shelter?” Caelum said, his frustration clearly showing in his voice. “And what can an army do? Challenge Despair to one-on-one combat? Demand that Pestilence meet us on the battlefield, weapons of his choosing? What am I supposed to do?”
“Be patient, Caelum,” Zared said. “We must wait for Faraday and—”
“I am sick of waiting for this fairy woman!” Askam said. “We must move, and move now. I suggest that—”
“Faraday?” put in a voice to one side of the clearing. “Faraday?”
They all spun around.
Axis and Azhure stepped out from the gloom of a tree. Just behind them StarDrifter leaned against the trunk of the tree, his wings and arms folded, his face devoid of any expression.
And, yet further behind him, pale shapes moved in and out of sight. Massive hounds—Azhure’s Alaunt. Most settled down out of sight, but one, Sicarius, their leader, walked forward to sit by Azhure’s side. Her hand touched the top of his head briefly, as if for reassurance.
“Father!” Caelum hugged his parents tightly, relieved beyond measure that they’d arrived. All three had to blink tears from their eyes. They were alive, and for the moment they were safe, and that meant there was still some hope left. There must be.
Caelum nodded at StarDrifter, who raised a tired hand in greeting, then returned his attention to his parents. “You were in the Star Gate Chamber? What happened? Did you see the Demons step through? And Drago? What of him?”
“Caelum, enough questions!” Axis said, but his tone was warm, and it took the sting out of his words. “Give me a moment to catch my breath and I will answer them.”
He swept his eyes about the clearing, taking in Zared, Askam and DareWing. Together? This group that had only days previously been committed to civil war? For the first time in days Axis felt a glimmer of true optimism. He looked Zared in the eye, remembering the last time they’d met—the heated words, the hatred—but now all he saw was the son of Rivkah and Magariz, his brother, and a man he would have to relearn to trust.
Caelum had obviously done it, and so could he—and Axis knew it would not be hard. This brother was one that, despite all the arguments and differences, he knew he could lean on when they faced a common enemy.
“We left the Chamber before the Demons broke through,” Axis said. “We didn’t see them—or Drago—although I imagine he came through with his demonic companions in treachery.”
Axis paused, and his voice and eyes hardened. “I hope he is satisfied with what he has accomplished. His revenge was harder than I ever imagined it could have been.”
“None of us know what was in Drago’s heart or mind when he fled Sigholt,” Zared said. Like Axis, all Zared’s illfeeling for his brother had vanished. Their personal problems and ambitions were petty in the face of the disaster that had enveloped them. “And we do not know if he was the instigator or just another victim of this disaster. Perhaps we should not judge him too harshly until we have heard what he has to say.”
Axis’ face hardened, and Zared decided to leave the subject of Drago well enough alone for the time being. “Axis,” he said, and stepped closer to him. He hesitated, then took one of Axis’ hands between his. “How are you? And Azhure?”
In truth, Zared did not have to ask, for both Axis and Azhure, and StarDrifter who still lingered in the shadows, looked as did every Icarii Enchanter Zared had seen in the past few days. They looked…ordinary.
“How am I?” Axis said, and, stunningly, quirked his mouth in a lopsided grin. “I am Axis, and that is all I am.”
Zared stared at him, holding his gaze, still holding his hand. “Is ‘just Axis’ going to be enough, brother?”
“It is all we have,” Azhure put in softly, and Zared shifted his gaze to her. There was still spirit in her eyes, and determination in her face. “Just Axis” and “just Azhure” might still be enough to stop the sky from falling in. Might.
Zared dropped Axis’ hand and nodded. “What do you know?”
“First,” Axis said, “I need to know what you have here. Zared and Caelum…together, in the one camp. And with no knives to each other’s throats. Have you made peace? And you mentioned Faraday. Have you seen her?”
Caelum hesitated, glanced at Zared, then spoke. “Father, we fought—”
“And I lost,” Zared put in, and grimaced.
“I had the advantage,” Caelum said, glancing again at Zared. “We agreed to unite against the threat of the Demons. We were riding
to meet you at the Ancient Barrows when…when…Zared, you finish. She spoke to you, not me.”
“On the night before the Demons broke through,” Zared said, “we were camped some four leagues above these Woods. I’d been to talk with Caelum, and when I returned I found Faraday and Zenith seated at my campfire.”
“Zenith?” Azhure said. “Are you sure it was she?”
Behind her StarDrifter finally straightened from the tree trunk and showed more interest in the conversation.
Zared frowned at her. “Yes, I am sure it was her. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Azhure turned her head aside. Axis had been right then. Niah—her mother—was truly dead. Yet one more grief to examine in the dead of night.
“Faraday and Zenith had just walked out of the night,” Leagh said, joining the group. She linked her arm with her husband’s, and shared a brief smile with him. “They were well, and more cheerful than any I had seen for weeks previously, or since.”
“She said that we had to flee for the Woods,” Zared said, “and that we’d be no more use than lambs in a slaughterhouse if we continued on to the Barrows.”
“In that she was right,” Axis said. “None of us were of any use.”
Unnoticed, StarDrifter had moved to linger at the outside of the group, listening.
“After some persuasion,” Caelum said, “I agreed to divert the army here. If we had been caught outside…”
“At least we have an army,” Axis said, “although Stars knows what use it will be to us. And Faraday and Zenith. Where are they now?”
“She said she and Zenith were going to the Star Gate,” Zared said. “They said they had someone to meet there. I thought it was you.”
Axis shook his head. “No. And if they were in the Chamber when the Demons broke through, then they would both be dead. No-one has the power to resist them.”
“Maybe.” StarDrifter now spoke up. “And maybe not. Faraday has changed, and who knows now what enchantment she draws upon. Besides,” he indicated the trees, “the forest’s power, as the Avar’s, has been wounded, but not mortally. There is hope.”