They reached the far shore without incident, and the moment the boat scraped against the gravel bottom of the Lake, all knew what was different about it.
The level of the Lake had dropped considerably, possibly by about the height of a man. Now they had several paces of dry lake bed to walk across to reach what had once been the shoreline and the now-waterless pier by Spiredore.
“But,” Faraday said, turning about on the exposed lake bed in consternation, “how can this be? When we arrived here several days ago the water level was as it always had been.”
“The Lake is drying out,” Drago said. “The TimeKeepers have seized what they need from Fernbrake, and now all that remains for them is what lies here.”
Zared looked intently at Drago. “Will the city remain safe? The gate we left by is hardly fortified. If the swarms of animals outside are able to reach it…”
“It will not dry out completely for a while yet,” Drago said, and turned for Spiredore. “And we shall return within the day.”
Spiredore, ever faithful to those who served the craft, took them safely to the Western Ranges. A series of steep and narrow stairs deposited them before a narrow corridor that led into an indiscernible blackness.
“Where are we?” Theod asked. His voice was strained, whether from nervousness inherent in everyone’s first experience of Spiredore, or what he thought he might find at the end of the journey, no-one knew.
“I imagine we will find out at the end of this passageway,” Drago said.
They walked down the corridor in a tight group, their steps slow, their hands groping along the walls so that they might not be surprised by a sudden drop in elevation, or a turn.
Even the feathered lizard, normally so exuberant, slunk directly behind Drago, his talons now and then flaring and lighting the gloom.
Drago paused as his hand slid from the smoothness of dry plaster to the dampness of cave rock. He blinked, and then squinted into the almost impenetrable darkness.
There was a faint, rough oval of light ahead.
A cave mouth.
“We have arrived, I think,” Drago said, “in the cave in which you and yours were so cruelly trapped, Theod. Be careful now.”
There was a scrape of steel as Zared and Theod drew their swords, but Drago motioned the lizard forward. He would be their best protection.
“It’s cold,” Leagh murmured, and, like Faraday, hugged her cloak tight about her.
Drago motioned them to remain still as the lizard snuffled about the cave—gradually becoming less featureless as everyone’s eyes adjusted to the night gloom—and then, as the lizard’s body relaxed, led them towards the mouth of the cave.
“The twenty thousand were scattered throughout the ranges,” Theod said. “How will you—”
“They will all be relatively close,” Drago said. “This cave was the lodestone, the trap, and they would all have been caught here.”
“But wouldn’t they have started to move elsewhere?” Zared said. “To Carlon, perhaps?”
“Not enough time,” Drago said. “They would have waited until the entire twenty thousand had been turned, and that could only just have been accomplished. Theod…how long is it since you left the cave?”
Theod calculated swiftly. “Six or seven days, or thereabouts.”
Drago nodded. “A week? Then all groups must have come through, but only just.”
“But they still must be scattered—” Theod began.
“Then we must ‘unscatter’ them,” Drago said. “For what I am about to do, I need them all close.”
Theod turned away, raising his hands in frustration, but Drago ignored him. He squatted down before Katie, and took her shoulders in his hands, staring into her face.
“Katie?” he asked softly. “Will you do it?”
She nodded silently, her face sober.
“I will protect you,” Drago said, and the girl smiled and flung her arms about his neck, planting a kiss on his cheek.
Taken aback, Drago disentangled the girl’s arms.
“We will need a large open space,” he said. “Theod, was there anywhere near here that can fit a crowd?”
“There is a grassy flat at the foot of this hill,” Theod’s voice was becoming harder by the moment. “But it will not fit twenty thousand.”
“No,” Drago said, keeping his own voice even, “but enough for a crowd of some thousands at least? Yes? Good. And there are gullies leading towards this grassy flat?”
“Yes! Gods damn you, Drago, what are you going to do?”
Drago stepped up to Theod and took his shoulders as he had just done Katie’s.
“Theod,” he said, and gave the man’s shoulders a little shake. “Just believe.”
Drago wore a gentle smile on his face that lit his eyes with warmth, and far more than the words it was that which relaxed Theod.
He nodded slightly. “I am worried for Gwendylyr,” he said. “All this time, running about the hills…and in what state?”
“Theod.” Now Zared spoke up. “Whatever else we have seen, it has not been corpses lying about. The Demons seize their minds and their souls, but they leave their bodies…intact.”
Zared had been about to say “alive”, but alive did not quite describe the state of those held in the Demons’ thrall, did it?
“We will find her, Theod,” Drago finished, and Theod gave another nod.
“Good.” Drago walked over to Katie and held out his hand. She took it, her face once again sober, and together they walked towards the entrance.
The feathered lizard ambled after them, but when the others made also to follow, Drago asked them to stay.
“You can see well enough from the mouth of the cave, and for the moment I would like you to remain there.”
Drago and the girl walked carefully down the slope of the hill, occasionally stumbling over a rock hidden in a tussock of grass or night shadow. When they reached the bottom, Drago spent a few minutes studying the terrain.
The grassy flat spread in a rough oval shape perhaps a hundred paces east and west and some sixty paces wide. At the far western end a ravine stretched back from the flat into unseen darkness, and four or five steep-sided and narrow ravines snaked into the flat from the east and west.
“Perfect!” Drago murmured, then he squatted down beside Katie. He was nervous, for this would be not only dangerous for all concerned—and especially Katie if he didn’t get the protective enchantment right—but would tax his own skill considerably.
Katie studied him, then reached out and took his hand. “You have come a long way from your pastry magics,” she said.
“You know about that?”
“I know everything. You know that.”
Drago sighed. Katie might only look like a tiny girl, but she was as old as the land itself. “Yes. I know that. But I thought some small details might have escaped your attention.”
“Do this,” Katie said, “for whoever still roams raving when Qeteb is fully resurrected will be beyond all of our help.”
Now Drago looked truly startled. “I did not know that! Gods! I should have done more to—”
Katie covered his hand in both of hers. “You wasted too many years in self-recrimination, Drago. For now, you can only do your best.”
He nodded, then stood up, hefting the staff in his left hand. He glanced up the hill. Everyone was standing at the top of the slope looking down: both women waited in stillness, the men shifted impatiently.
Drago looked back to Katie, who had now sat herself cross-legged on the grass. He thought of the enchantment he would need, and almost in the same moment Drago felt the movement of the staff under his left hand, and with his right sketched the enchantment in the air.
He opened his mouth to ask the lizard to make it visible, but the lizard also acted almost without conscious thought. He lifted his right foreclaw and re-sketched the symbol in light.
Above, Leagh took Faraday’s arm in a tight hand. “Do you know,” she wh
ispered, “that symbol almost means something to me.”
Faraday frowned…what could she…ah! She too could somehow feel the symbol reaching out for her, communicating with her in some undefinable way.
“Protection,” both women muttered at the same time.
“It is an enchantment of protection,” Faraday added, then shook her head slightly. What was going on? It felt as if that enchantment was reaching out fingers into her mind, doing something, or appealing to something, but she couldn’t—
“It’s the Acharite magic in us!” Leagh said, still keeping her voice low. “We can understand it because we have both seen the field of flowers!”
Faraday’s frown deepened, and she placed a hand over Leagh’s where it rested on her arm. Was Leagh right? When Drago had included her in the vision, had he somehow forged the final link to her forgotten blood magic? She looked back to Drago.
He had taken the enchantment in both hands, and had now stretched it to over three times its original size.
Then he lowered it gently over Katie so that she was surrounded by it.
It glowed a deep crimson—and then vanished.
“It is still there,” Leagh said to her husband and Theod, who had moved in surprise. “But invisible. The child is protected.”
The child sat very calmly, her eyes downcast, and Drago sketched another symbol in the air.
This was stunningly complicated, and it seemed to Faraday that it would never end. The five fingers on his right hand seemed to move completely independently of each other, while the hand itself danced and wove through the air.
The feathered lizard watched, a frown of deep concentration on its face. Finally Drago’s hand jerked to a halt, and he drew a deep breath.
“My friend,” he said to the lizard, and the lizard began the tiring task of retracing the enchantment in light.
When it hovered complete in the air before Drago, it was of a strange light, almost a grey light, and to those watching from above it was very, very hard to see in the night air.
But from what they could see of it, it was composed of hundreds, if not thousands, of intertwining lines.
Drago put down his staff and took the enchantment in both hands.
Then he began to compress it. It took considerable strength, for occasionally he grunted, and his shoulders visibly heaved with the effort, but finally the enchantment, now a small ball of grey light, sat in the palm of his left hand.
With his right, Drago drew an arrow from the quiver, pausing briefly to run his fingers through its beautiful bluedyed feathers.
Then he placed the enchantment on to the arrowhead, shrugged the Wolven off his shoulder, and fitted the arrow to the bow.
“What is he going to do?” Theod asked.
“He is springing a trap,” Leagh said. “That is all I know. A trap.”
“I can tell no more,” Faraday added at Theod’s querying look. “Just trust him, please.”
There was a twang, and the arrow shot into the air. Drago must be fitter and stronger than I imagined, Zared thought, for I had heard that only the strongest of Icarii could wield that weapon.
But Drago’s lithe body obviously held all the strength the Wolven needed, for the arrow shot straight and true into the air, rising higher and higher until it was lost to sight.
Faraday and Leagh both suddenly shivered.
“We cannot see it,” Leagh said. “But that enchantment has risen high into the sky where the arrow released it. It has expanded to a thousand hundred times its former size, and its grey lines of light now hang invisible in the night sky.”
“A net?” Zared asked.
“Aye,” Faraday replied softly. “A net.”
And then all four jumped in surprise, for the arrow plunged down into the earth at their very feet. Faraday leaned down and retrieved it, running her fingers up and down its length before finally stowing it under her belt.
Leagh’s eyes widened slightly as she saw what Faraday wore under the cloak. “Faraday!” she whispered.
Faraday looked at her, the cloak falling closed about her form.
Leagh unwrapped her own cloak a little, enough for Faraday to see what she wore.
“Why?” Faraday said.
Leagh took her time in replying, and when she did, she looked at Drago rather than Faraday. “We have both walked the field of flowers, Faraday, and are thus sisters.
“And this night I think we shall have a third join us.”
Faraday shuddered, clutching cloak tight about her with white fingers. “And Goldman and DareWing, if Drago accepts him?”
Leagh grinned, a wide, disarming smile, and looked Faraday in the eye. “But they are men, Faraday. Men! How can they be ‘sisters’?”
Faraday stared at her, and then she laughed, and hugged Leagh quickly to her.
“You are not alone any more,” Leagh whispered into Faraday’s ear, “for you shall end this night with two sisters closer than any blood sisters can be.”
Faraday blinked back tears, overwhelmed with emotion. Not alone any more? But she had always been alone!
“Never more,” Leagh whispered.
“What are you two mumbling about,” Zared asked.
“Nothing,” both women replied as one, and straightened, Faraday turning away momentarily to control her emotions.
They looked back to Drago.
He was staring straight at them, and Faraday wondered if somehow he’d heard what she and Leagh had whispered.
“He will one day wish to retrieve his arrow,” Leagh said, but Faraday did not reply.
“What do you mean, ‘a net’?” Theod asked, having completely missed the emotion and exchanges of the past few moments.
“Drago has constructed a huge net in the sky with his enchantment,” Faraday said. “Neither you nor Zared were there to see it, but when Drago brought Leagh back, he enveloped her in an enchantment of light. He will do something similar here, methinks.”
She fell silent, and watched Drago bend down to Katie to whisper something in her ear.
“A huge net,” Faraday finally said. “I think he means to entice the twenty thousand, or whatever of them remains, to this spot, and the ravines and gullies surrounding them, then trap them under his enchantment.”
“How so ‘entice’?” Zared asked. He had moved to Leagh’s side, and had wrapped his arms about her to keep some of the freezing night air at bay. For her part, Leagh cuddled comfortably against his body, relieved beyond measure that he was not only here, but chose to hold her so close.
“He will entice them with the child,” Faraday said, and her voice hardened to brittleness. “Gods forgive him if he harms her, for I shall not do so.”
Leagh twisted her face slightly to look at her, but she did not say anything. Beneath them, the child began to sing, and all eyes dropped down to her.
Drago had stepped back a pace or two, and now stood behind the child. With his right hand he set the staff firmly in the grass, and with his left snapped his fingers to call the feathered lizard to his side. It settled down close beside him, keeping its eyes on the child.
Both Leagh and Faraday could feel the crimson enchantment about the child, though they did not see it. It throbbed, and they could feel the beat in their blood.
The beat of the Star Dance? They only knew it was a beat that not only they, but the entire land of Tencendor throbbed with, and they closed their eyes, and swayed gently with the rhythm of the beat and of the song Katie sang.
The child sang a lullaby, one that all, save Drago, could remember their mothers singing over their toddling cradles. It was a sweet song, one that was redolent with innocence and the joyous dreams of the sinless. It spoke of all-encompassing motherly love, and of fields waving with grain and the cheerful scarves and smiles of the harvesters in the fields within which children could play from dawn to dusk without fear, and whose golden acres of grain dipped and swayed to the music of their laughter and song. This was a land without tears, a land with
out fear, and a land where all knew that death was but a short walk through the gate never dared into the next field…
…the field of flowers, a field thick with peonies and cornflowers and poppies, and crowned with millions of lilies, perhaps billions of them, white and gold and crimson, waving their joyous throats at the sun.
“That is not quite the same lullaby that I seem to remember,” Theod said softly.
“Nor I,” Zared said.
Faraday smiled a little, but it was Leagh who responded, her hand on her belly.
“But it is the lullaby I shall sing our child to sleep with, methinks,” she said, and smiled at Zared.
Katie sings of the land that will be, Faraday thought, once Drago brings Tencendor through death and into the field of lilies. And again, to her annoyance, she had to blink back tears. I demand that right to walk among the lilies, too, Drago, she thought, and I will not let love for you trap me in a dark world without flowers.
“Look,” said Zared, and the tone of his voice made all raise their heads.
Shapes were creeping through the night towards Katie. Some slithered, some crept, some writhed on their bellies, and some crawled, but none walked upright. There were shapes so small they could only be babes in arms. There were shapes with wings, members of what had once been the Icarii Strike Force.
Zared was cold with horror. Not so much at the bestial nature of what writhed and crept through the night, for he had steeled himself against that sight, but at the thought that among these beasts also crawled the Icarii Strike Force. He had grown up with the tales of their heroism and valour during Axis’ battles with Gorgrael, and had grown up with the sight of them dancing in the air above Sigholt.
To think of them now crawling through the ravines and gullies through dirt and brambles towards this child—as the Gryphon had once crawled through the snow and ice of Gorken Pass towards Azhure—was almost too much to bear.
He turned his face away, unable to watch.
“They come drawn by Katie’s song,” Faraday said quietly. “Towards its innocence and beauty and hope.” She paused. “They want to destroy it, and kill the singer, for of all things in their maddened world that they cannot stand, it is innocence and hope.”