Star Finger was as lacking in enchantment as were the Minaret Peaks, but the mountain also housed far less Icarii than did the southern city, and they had managed to remain relatively comfortable. The corridors were gloomy and cold, but the chambers that were needed could be lit adequately for those who required them.
From the entrance in the eastern wall of the mountain, Adamon and Xanon led Axis, Azhure and a Caelum now rested enough to walk into one of the apartment complexes close to the peak of Star Finger. Here natural light filtering through thickened glass lit the chambers and coal-fired braziers warmed the air.
Two healers waited, and led Caelum and Azhure to benches so the healers could inspect their wounds and stitch those that needed it. Azhure was clearly impatient, but Caelum appeared very calm, almost cheerful, and the others put it down to the relative safety of Star Finger.
Azhure grimaced at the bite of the stitching needle, but managed a smile for Axis. “I have not endured a wound since the Skraelings scored my ribs in Hsingard.”
Axis tried to return her smile, but found himself unable to. He’d never been able to regard the sight of Azhure bleeding, whether in field or childbirth battle, with equanimity, and he could not now.
So he touched her cheek, knowing she understood his concern, and turned to the healer attending Caelum. Only two of the wounds needed any stitching, and all were clean and healthy; Xanon’s attentions at the cave had saved both Caelum and Azhure any lasting harm.
A movement caught his eye. Sicarius, moving among his pack, which was now lying close-grouped against a far wall. He was licking the wounds of the several hounds who had also been wounded in the fight with the Hawkchilds. Among them was FortHeart, who had a severe wound running down the left side of her skull. It oozed yellow effluent, leaving the pale fur of her neck and shoulder stained and fetid, and she bit off a yelp as Sicarius tried to clean it for her.
As Axis watched, Sicarius raised his head and stared at him. His golden eyes were flat and hard, and the corner of one lip raised very, very slightly, exposing the gleam of a fang.
Help her.
Axis jumped, stunned at the distinct request—nay, not a request, more a command. It had not sounded as voice, nor in the same way as the mind voice which all Icarii Enchanters had once been able to employ, but more as sheer emotion seething across the space between them.
Help her!
“FeatherTouch,” Axis said quietly to one of the healers assisting with Azhure, “will you and another see to the hounds?”
“Yes, StarMan.”
Again Sicarius’ lip curled, but after a moment he dropped his head, and continued cleaning FortHeart’s wound until FeatherTouch arrived. Then, having satisfied himself that the other members of his pack would receive attention in due course, he sank down to the floor, his head on his forepaws, and watched Axis steadily.
Axis tore his gaze away—damn those hounds! If they hadn’t aided in repelling the Hawkchilds then he may have tried to persuade Azhure to have them placed under close guard in cells. He no longer trusted them, and knew that they no longer trusted him.
“Azhure,” he murmured, and leaned back to her side.
Sicarius watched the activities of the Icarii, gods and SunSoars. He no longer felt at home with them, no longer wanted to be with them, although he did not feel animosity towards them as such. More than ever before in his life he felt the roar of the bear in his veins, and all he wanted to do was run with his true master.
When? When? When?
A movement in the open doorway caught his eyes. Sicarius pricked his ears, and every muscle in his body tensed. Then he relaxed, his lips almost seeming to grin, and his tail wagged once in a barely discernible movement.
There. Another of his pack.
In a manner of speaking.
The blue-feathered lizard flared its emerald and scarlet crest, then scuttled back into the shadows.
Sicarius slid his eyes back to Caelum, who sat with his eyes closed as he patiently bore the ministrations of the healer. Sicarius could sense the change in the man, sense the understanding, and as far as the leader of the Alaunt was concerned, that made Caelum an honorary member of the pack.
Caelum opened his eyes and caught Sicarius’ stare.
He nodded slightly, and Sicarius’ tail gave a single thump.
“You must rest!” Adamon threw up his hands in frustration, but Axis and Azhure would have none of his patience.
“You cannot say to us, ‘I have found something’, with such high excitement,” Axis said, “and then expect us to sleep quietly and spend an hour or two at leisurely supper while Tencendor decays about us. Tell us!”
Adamon glanced at Caelum, who merely smiled and nodded his head.
He shrugged. “Xanon, will you fetch the others?”
She nodded and walked to the door. “Come,” she called softly, and Pors, Silton, Narcis, Flulia, and Zest entered. They had previously greeted Axis, Azhure and their son, and now sat quietly on chairs scattered about the chamber.
Several of the hounds moved to make room for the gods, but most remained still and watchful. Even though their interest and hope lay elsewhere, they still held a respect for the Circle entire.
Two Elder Icarii also entered. Axis knew them well, for they were the senior scholars of the Star Finger complex, respected for their wisdom and learning. Their names had long lost any importance, and they were addressed only by their titles.
“Respected Preceptor,” Axis said, and inclined his head. “Respected Historian.”
Azhure and Caelum also murmured a greeting, and the Preceptor and Historian sat together on a couch close by the brazier. They were dressed in plain white robes, and their bodies were unadorned with any of the finery Icarii usually adored. Even their wing feathers seemed oddly dulled, as if the two scholars assiduously bleached away their luminescence upon rising each morning.
Adamon, the only one who remained standing, inclined his head at those gathered, and then spoke.
“I, as my companions,” he glanced at the other Star Gods, “returned to Star Finger in the hope that the accumulated knowledge of tens of thousands of years held in its libraries might contain an answer to our current lack of effectiveness against the TimeKeeper Demons.
“Caelum StarSon must be the one to meet them…but how? How? If all his power, as all our powers, have disappeared with the Star Dance? When at first we returned, we had no luck,” Adamon continued. “Even with the aid of all the respected scholars in Star Finger, we could find no hint of a solution to the problem. And yet where else could lie the answer to Caelum’s dire need?”
Adamon’s voice was tight with the frustration and anger of his initial lack of success. He sighed, and visibly relaxed his muscles.
“Then the Respected Historian came to me, and said there was an inconsistency. Historian, will you speak.”
“Star Finger, once Talon Spike, has been used by the Icarii since their conception by the great Enchantress fifteen thousand years ago,” the Historian said. His voice was rich and melodious, and Axis knew how he could hold a class, as any audience, enthralled for many hours. “The mountain has been burrowed into and hollowed out for fifteen thousand years. It holds fifteen thousand years of memories—and fifteen thousand years of secrets. In the very roots of the mountains lie secret basements, basements thick with enchantment.”
“Surely those basements were always to be meant as hiding places for the Icarii nation,” Azhure said, “should they ever come under attack. That SpikeFeather chose to evacuate the mountain rather than hide the people there speaks of the fear that all then regarded the Gryphon—and Gorgrael.”
“Yes, yes,” the Historian said, “but these were unusual enchantments. Preceptor, my friend, will you speak?”
The Preceptor nodded. “My primary task here in Star Finger was to instruct those Enchanters who chose to spend their years in study and contemplation of the most arcane and secret of enchantments. When my colleague the Historia
n came to me and engaged me in conversations about the enchantments surrounding the basements, and after some days of investigation and study on these most forgotten of enchantments, I realised there was an unusual conundrum present.”
Caelum shifted slightly, easing his sore muscles, and again caught Sicarius’ eyes on him. How long have you known, my friend? Caelum thought. Did you run about Sigholt and Star Finger with my mother all these years and know the lie we all lived?
Sicarius’ tail thumped once again.
“The current problem surrounding the enchantments guarding the basement are twofold. One, why are they there in the first instance? The wards guarding the basements from attack should be erected only after they are full with refugees. Second, given that they are there, they should not be working. The Star Dance is gone—how can they still be in place?”
“But some enchantments do remain,” Azhure said. “The mists surrounding Sigholt, for example. The magic of the Maze Gate.”
“Quite,” the Preceptor said. “What enchantments remain are those which we may have connected with the music of the Star Dance, but they are enchantments that perhaps draw their power from somewhere else.”
“The Lakes,” Caelum said. “They draw their power from the Lakes, or from the craft that lie within the Lakes.”
“Yes,” the Historian said. “So we wondered if the fact that the enchantments have remained in place, and the fact they are in place in the first instance, means that they already guard something within the basements!”
“Something connected to the Lakes, and the craft, perhaps!” Adamon said, now walking about the room, his movements restrained but tight with excitement. “We had to see. We had to search. We had to know!”
“And?” Axis said quietly.
“And…” Adamon took a deep breath. “My friends, do you feel you could manage the long walk down to Star Finger’s cellars?”
They descended for hour past hour, and Adamon made them rest at regular intervals, passing out food and liquid at each stop. A score of Icarii, bearing burning torches and light packs with the food, came down with the gods, Caelum and the two scholars.
Behind all trod the Alaunt. Axis had noticed them rise to follow the party, and again had thought about asking that the hounds should be detained, but had eventually remained silent.
At first, as they descended the stairs that curved about the main shafts, the way was pleasant, if somewhat dark and chill. But after two hours they reached less travelled shafts, and then moved into stairwells that had lain forgotten for generations of Icarii. The odd feather and tuft of fur, covered with dust, lay as reminders that the only living beings who had descended into the bowels of Talon Spike had been Gorgrael’s Gryphon.
The stairwells stank, stank from disuse, damp and the foulness that still remained of the Gryphon. All had to watch their footing on edges that crumbled and surfaces that glistened with ice.
Several turns of the stairwell behind the main party trod the Alaunt, the feathered lizard openly travelling with them, albeit at the rear.
“No-one had any idea, really, that these stairs existed,” the Historian murmured as they descended. He, like everyone, kept one hand on the wall for support. “They had lain so long forgotten.”
“We came down here once, last week,” Adamon said, “and found what we…well, found what we did, and then decided to await your arrival before coming back.”
“What’s that noise?” Azhure said, raising her head.
“What we have come to see,” Adamon said, and the next instant the stair levelled out onto undulating flagstones. “This way. Come.” And he led them across the floor to a corridor.
As they walked down the corridor the noise became louder.
“Oh!” Azhure cried, and her eyes filled with tears. It was the sound of a child weeping, a girl-child, and Azhure was reminded of her own painful and lost childhood. “Let me past! I must—”
“No.” Adamon caught Azhure’s arm as she tried to push past him. “Please, Azhure, there is nothing you can do for her, and no point in rushing on this damp and slippery flooring.”
They walked through the dark corridor—it felt as close as a tomb! Azhure thought—for another fifty or sixty paces, and then suddenly they were in a large domed chamber.
Empty, save for the figure of a five- or six-year-old girl huddled against the far wall, her arms wrapped about a great leather-bound book, crying disconsolately.
“Oh!” Azhure cried, and finally managed to push past Adamon and rush towards the girl.
Instantly, the girl’s sobs became screams of terror and, as Azhure neared her, the girl literally convulsed with the strength of her fear. There was a flash of light, and Azhure was thrown against a side wall.
“No-one can approach her,” Adamon said, as Axis hurried to Azhure and helped her to rise. She was uninjured, save for a bruise where her shoulder had hit the stone, and wheezing from being badly winded.
“All have been repulsed who tried to near her, or comfort her,” Adamon continued.
“But look,” he pointed to the book held tightly within the girl’s arms. She was relatively still now, although she still cried, but her eyes remained terrified as she stared at the intruders. “Look at what you can see on the front cover.”
Between the white flesh of the girl’s forearms, three words could be seen gleaming in gold.
Enchanted Song Book.
“I think there lies the one way we can re-find the power of the Star Dance,” Adamon said. “She waits, we think, for the StarSon. Caelum. Will you—”
Caelum had recognised the girl instantly as the child who had spoken to him in the field of flowers. He hesitated, knowing it would be useless for him to approach her, but everyone was looking at him, and so he started forward.
He hoped the girl would understand.
She had calmed even more now, and all watching thought, hoped, that Caelum might be able to approach her when no-one else could.
The girl’s sobs stopped, and her blue eyes widened.
When Caelum was no more than seven paces away, the girl rose to her feet.
“You came!” she cried out with glad voice, and Caelum smiled…and then he realised that her eyes were fixed on something—someone—behind him. Very slowly, knowing who he would see, Caelum turned about.
There, barely visible in the gloomy doorway leading to the corridor, stood Drago.
He smiled, his eyes only for the girl.
“Hello, Katie,” he said.
47
StarSon
Axis whirled about, shocked and angry at Drago’s intrusion. How had he entered? How had he known? Axis had had enough. He’d promised Drago the last time he’d seen him that if Drago set foot in Star Finger he would die, and Axis meant to carry the promise through.
The instant he moved in Drago’s direction, Caelum’s voice cracked across the chamber. “Father!”
Every eye in the chamber, save those of Drago and the girl, swivelled to Caelum.
“Father,” Caelum repeated, “let Drago enter.”
Axis stared at Caelum, shocked by the command in his son’s voice, looked back to Drago, then reluctantly took a step back. He felt Azhure at his back, and felt her take one of his hands.
Drago had hardly noticed his father, and had hardly heard Caelum. He only had eyes for the girl, as she him. Drago walked slowly into the chamber, the only display of emotion the slight clenching and unclenching of his hand about the staff.
Azhure watched him carefully. He seemed different, but she could not define it. Physically, he looked much the same; the copper hair slicked back into a tail, the leanness, the thin face that looked perpetually tired because of the deep lines that ran from nose to mouth.
But his eyes were subtly different. Still violet, but deeper, more alive. Deeply compassionate, Azhure realised with a start, and with a depth of knowing that she’d never, never seen there previously.
Power? Maybe. But how? Something the Demons
had invested him with? Azhure abandoned that thought the instant it crossed her mind. No. This came from within him, deep within him, and was somehow him.
“DragonStar,” she mouthed silently—and completely involuntarily—as he drew level with her, and for the first time since he’d entered the chamber, Drago’s eyes flickered away from the girl and towards his mother. In the space of a heartbeat, a look, an understanding passed between them and Azhure dropped her eyes, stricken.
In that instant she had been consumed with love. Unimaginable love for her had coursed from him, but she had also felt her own love overwhelm her. Her love for her second-born son…a love she had denied both to herself and to him for forty, long, horrid years.
Drago looked back to the girl.
She had clambered to her feet, still clutching the book, a final hiccupping sob escaping her lips. She was a beautiful child, with glossy brunette hair and dark blue eyes, and with fragile translucent skin.
“Katie,” Drago murmured, and walked towards the girl.
Caelum stepped back to let him pass, his gaze riveted on his brother. His eyes were very bright and full of emotion, and Axis, watching him carefully, wondered at that. He would have said it was fright, save that Caelum’s face showed no hint of fear.
Unseen by any in the room, Faraday slipped through the door into the chamber. Behind her crowded the pale shapes of the Alaunt. She stopped just behind Xanon, who stood behind everyone else.
Drago squatted before the girl. “Katie,” he said, and his smile widened into embracing warmth.
She gave one final sniff, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and stared at him with unblinking eyes. Slowly she took the book in both hands, and extended it towards him.
“For you,” she said.
“No!” Axis’ voice rang across the chamber. “That is meant for—”
“Axis,” Azhure took his arm firmly, drawing him back against her body. “Please, just watch.”
He tensed, angry, but he closed his mouth. Azhure could feel every muscle in his body tighten, and she gripped his arm the harder.