Here he could indulge in his new-found fascination with mysticism to the extreme. The priestesses, calm in crisis, were happy enough to indulge him, and Goldman wasted several hours in their company exploring the implications of his newly acquired “depth”. The priestesses, in their turn, were equally fascinated by his news of Drago and the power he exhibited.
It would keep them, they declared, in happy contemplation for many a year.
Eventually, it was a five-year-old boy who had to rescue them from the depths of the library and push them towards the doorway set up in the avenue leading to the now-extinct temple.
Both priestesses and Goldman emerged from the library with the most precious of its scrolls stuffed under arms and belts; even the small boy was pressed into carrying an extra armful.
As they paused before the gateway, the First Priestess turned back and stared a final time at her beloved island, then, her face stoic, she stepped into the doorway.
His eyes shining with tears, Goldman stepped after her.
Leagh found her task depressing beyond words. She wished Zared was with her, and yet was glad he was not. He would only have fussed, and in the end made her feel worse. In the end, Leagh found the best remedy to her heavy-heartedness was to keep busy…and there was plenty for her to do.
There were still tens of thousands of people huddled away in hidey-holes and secret chambers across western Tencendor. Many of them had hardly ventured out for months, ever since the Demons had first arrived, and Leagh found herself retelling again and again the tale of the Demons, and what was happening, and how Drago had metamorphosed from betrayer to saviour (and whenever she said the word “betrayer” she thought of Faraday, and wondered how the woman was coping), and what a wonderful place Sanctuary was.
“And all you have to do,” Leagh always concluded, “is step through this enchanted doorway.” And she would wave her hand at the glowing rectangle of light that she’d set up in a barn, or a farmyard, or the market square of some small hamlet.
The frightened, thin and often sick people would look at her, look at the doorway, and then exchange glances between themselves.
And then the invariable question. “Can I bring me pigs?” Or cow, or flock of ducks or geese, or whatever they’d managed to secrete away in their barns or under their beds, or deep in their cellars.
Leagh, and she supposed Drago, had never thought that people could have saved so much of their livestock. Somehow she’d thought that every creature in Tencendor had been demonised, but in actuality thousands had been saved.
And so Leagh would smile. “Of course,” she would say, and then smile at the thought of StarDrifter’s face as a further herd of pigs or cows or dusty mob of poultry cascaded through Spiredore into Sanctuary.
But the secreted herds of domestic livestock were not the largest surprise Leagh encountered.
On the fifth day of her mission, tired and hungry and determined that wherever she found herself next she would beg a meal before she’d provide an escape, she stood in Spiredore and said, “Take me to those who need to be rescued.”
And Spiredore deposited her in a cave in the northern cliffs of Murkle Bay.
Leagh spun about as soon as she found herself there, unnerved by the darkness and the sense of a great many warm bodies surrounding her.
There were snorts, and squeals, and a sense of wave after wave of undulating movement.
And a stench that turned Leagh’s stomach.
“Who’s there?” she cried, wondering if Spiredore had finally made a mistake and deposited her in the Demons’ boudoir itself.
More shuffles and snuffles and the strange sense of great undulating movement.
Leagh realised she was hyperventilating, and tried to calm herself, steadying her breathing with a huge effort. Her stomach heaved again, and at precisely the same moment her baby shifted and jabbed a heel or elbow into the side of her womb.
It was too much, and Leagh bent double and retched.
As she wiped her mouth, she felt something brush or bump against the back of her legs.
Her heart pounding, Leagh spun around, and saw that she stared into the grey-lit dawn beyond the mouth of a massive cave.
She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the dim light…and then gasped as she realised what surrounded her.
Ten thousand seals. All with their bodies and eyes directed straight towards her.
Among them crawled crabs and lobsters, and above bats and numerous small birds circled and chatted.
Stunned, Leagh could do little but stare for a long time, then she began to cry as she realised the enormity of the tragedy that enveloped Tencendor. These seals, alone, waiting for help, and gathering to them all the creatures they could.
Hoping that someone would come to save them.
Blinking away her tears, Leagh withdrew the cube of light from her pocket and expanded the doorway.
“Sanctuary,” she said, and pointed into the door.
Without hesitation, and in the most orderly exodus Leagh had yet seen, the seals, birds, crabs and whatever other creatures had hidden in the cave, made their way through the door.
She stood for hours watching them go through, and as the final seals passed into the door, and Leagh was about to step through herself, a shape circled down from the very peak of the cave and alighted before her.
It was a very old, and very majestic, speckled blue eagle, and while Leagh had no way of knowing that this was the eagle that had witnessed the final days of the Seneschal, nor even that he was the same eagle that she’d watched spiralling over Grail Lake on the day she’d sat and pined for Zared, Leagh nevertheless understood his dignity and wisdom, and she bowed slightly to him.
“Friend eagle,” she said. “Will you accept Sanctuary?”
In answer the eagle cocked his head and stared at her belly with his bright eyes, then he gave a single, sharp nod, and launched himself into the doorway.
With tears still in her eyes, Leagh followed.
In the next two days, she found many similar caches of wildlife.
Gwendylyr ran her evacuation as efficiently as she had run her household, and as efficiently as she’d run Aldeni. Theod may have been the one to attend the Councils, and to wear the glory and the regalia of Duke, but in reality it had been Gwendylyr who’d kept the bureaucratic machinery of Aldeni going, had overseen the courts when Theod was absent (and that had been much of the time), and had supervised the social, political and economic life of Aldeni.
How she’d managed to bear twin sons amid all this activity she’d never known. Well, now her sons were not around to hang on her skirts and slow down her day (and Gwendylyr’s eyes always filled with tears when she thought of Tomas and Cedrian), and neither was Theod, dear that he was. Gwendylyr had a task to do, and she did it fabulously.
Like Leagh, she encountered flocks of sanguine livestock among the hordes of frightened peasants, and flocks of wilder life among the shadows of valleys and small woods. To none of them did Gwendylyr deny entry to Sanctuary, and to none of them did she raise so much as an eyebrow.
The day, however, that a battalion of millipedes crawled over her feet to avoid the trampling hooves of some thirtyscore red deer, Gwendylyr did permit herself a brief closure of the eyes and a genteel shudder.
A Sanctuary with millipedes would never be quite the same again.
Faraday had the hardest task of all.
When she first stepped into the trees, she asked Spiredore to place her somewhere peaceful, where there were no people. First she needed to walk, and to come to terms with her re-acquaintance with the forests. In strict chronological terms, it had only been some eight months since she’d last wandered the trails underneath the trees, but it felt like a lifetime.
Faraday had not realised how much she’d changed since Drago had twirled that damned Sceptre about the Chamber of the Star Gate. She encountered memories in the drooping branches of trees, in the cascade of wildflowers in shadowed glades, in the well-r
emembered paths and the lullaby of the grasses’ song.
Here was where she’d fed as a deer, here where she’d been feted by the Avar, here where she’d watched Isfrael being raised without her.
Here where she’d watched Shra seduce him into manhood.
Here, where she trod again.
And yet, even in sorrow and painful memory, the forest was a gladsome place to be. Shy creatures peeked out from shrubs, and tentatively nosed her outstretched hands. Not just the normal timid creatures of the forest, but sapphire and ruby-spined porcupines, orange and blue splotched panthers, beetles that were as transparent and as lovely as crystals.
Finally, after a half-day spent wandering and remembering, Faraday stepped back through her enchanted door into Spiredore.
“Take me to my son,” she said.
Spiredore took her, as Faraday had been sure it would, to the Earth Tree Grove.
There, as she had known there would be, virtually the entire populations of the Clans were gathered, save for those who’d had the good sense to make a decision independently of the Mage-King and made their own way to Sanctuary.
Faraday had materialised just inside the surrounding ring of trees, and for a brief moment she knew she could observe while remaining relatively unobserved. The grove was packed. The Avar sat in a great, murmuring crowd before the Earth Tree and her ring of stone.
It was late afternoon, and brands of fire hung about the circle of stone.
Faraday lifted her eyes. The Earth Tree reared into the darkening sky, massive, far larger than Faraday had remembered it, but if it looked larger, then it also looked far less healthy. Its oval, dark green leaves were splotched with mould, and most of its trumpet-shaped flowers had withered. Those that still hung fat and full had lost their jewel-like colours, and were now insipid yellows and blues.
Slowly, Faraday dropped her eyes.
Isfrael sat upon his wooden throne under one of the stone arches leading into the inner sanctum of the Earth Tree herself.
He wore only his kirtle of twigs, his hair was uncombed and twisting close to wildness, his arms and hands tense where they gripped the armrests, his eyes narrow, his face—gods, but it reminded Faraday so much of his father!—carefully impassive.
He knew Faraday was there, even though the outer ring of trees still hid her.
She stepped into the grove, and a ripple of awareness passed through the Avar. There was a buzz of excitement and comment, and faces and bodies swivelled towards her.
“Welcome to the Lady Faraday,” Isfrael said, his voice clear across the entire gathering. “Welcome to Faraday, my Lady Mother. What do you here, Faraday?”
Why so hostile? Faraday thought. Why? She remembered the conversation they’d had in the Silent Women Woods just before she’d left to go north with Drago…if conversation it could be called.
“I might well ask you the same question, Isfrael,” Faraday said.
She walked further into the grove, stepping carefully though the ranks of the Avar.
“You are not welcome here,” Isfrael said.
Faraday stopped, stunned and angry. Not welcome…not welcome here?
She was not the only one who heard Isfrael’s words with dismay. A murmur ran through the Avar, and by Faraday’s side a woman reached up her hand and took Faraday’s briefly in a gesture of support.
“I thank you,” Faraday said softly to the woman, and she resumed her walk towards Isfrael.
“I come on behalf of Drago—” she began.
“My mother,” Isfrael said, “has an incredible talent for attaching herself to every leading male figure in every crisis this land endures. Do you whore for Drago as you whored for my father?”
Faraday’s temper snapped. “It was not whoring that made you, but love, you arrogant, be-twigged bastard! And love is something I cannot expect you to understand!”
“You are not welcome here!” Isfrael repeated, and rose to his feet. “You should never have left the legend to which Fate consigned you.”
Suddenly, in a blinding moment of revelation, Faraday understood why he was so hostile. Isfrael, Mage-King of the Avar, Lord of the Forests, loved his legendary mother dearly…but only so long as she remained legend. As legend, she embellished and enriched Isfrael’s own power and own legend.
As a walking reality, given the Avar’s love and loyalty to her and her own history of power, she was a massive threat. Possibly so massive, that in Isfrael’s own mind, she outweighed even the threat of the TimeKeepers.
No wonder he had not evacuated the forests. Here he was lord. In Sanctuary he only became another chapter in the continuing saga of his mother’s legend. Isfrael would rather be lord of a smoking ruin than king of a people in exile.
Faraday felt very, very sorry for him, yet at the same time she was furiously angry. No king could let himself be overwhelmed with such pettiness!
She took a deep breath and addressed the Avar people.
Even though she was dressed simply in her white robe, she was nonetheless an imposing figure with her aura of power and sheer anger.
“My people,” she began, and Isfrael stepped down from his throne and began to push through the crowd towards her.
“I once walked among you as Tree Friend. Then, when fate and the Prophecy of the Destroyer meant that I had to leave you and follow the StarMan to Gorgrael’s Ice Fortress, I left you in the capable hands of Shra, who in turn was to hand responsibility over to my son.
“That,” she pointed at Isfrael, now more than halfway towards her, “is no more my son than Gorgrael was ever my true lover.”
“Silence!” Isfrael roared. Fury rippled off him, and made him appear twice his normal size.
Faraday did not back down. “If you were the true son of Faraday Tree Friend,” she said quietly, “you would have led these people into Sanctuary long before now.”
Isfrael stopped a pace away. His face was flushed, his chest heaving, his fists clenched by his sides. About them the Avar also tensed, ready to leap to Faraday’s defence if need be. For days now they’d been uncomfortable with Isfrael’s decision to reject Sanctuary, and had met with him this evening to try to change his mind.
“We can survive these TimeKeepers,” Isfrael growled. “The trees will protect us. There is no threat!”
Where had she heard these words before? Faraday wondered.
“No threat?” she said, and she turned slightly so she was directly facing the Earth Tree. “Then what is that?”
Isfrael jerked, as if he was going to lunge for her, but before he could move a ghostly apparition appeared under the stone circle and walked forward so it could address the Avar.
It was Barsarbe, once senior Bane of the Avar, and champion of the idea that the Avar could wait out the time of Gorgrael within the safety of their forests without aiding the StarMan.
The apparition opened her mouth, and spoke. “My people, is this our fight? We have the Avarinheim, and now we have Minstrelsea to the south. The Earth Tree sings, and the forests sing with her. We are safe. Gorgrael cannot touch us!”
Barsarbe spread her arms wide, hands and voice entreating. “Don’t we have what we wanted? So why help Axis? It will surely only bring further pain to our people, and Mother knows we have endured enough pain. We have what we want,” she repeated slowly, lowering her hands, her voice becoming strident. “I say we have the choice of refusing the StarMan.”
She lowered her arms, and grinned in triumph. “And further I say, why not let Gorgrael have the plains. Why care we? We will be safe here.”
Isfrael stared horrified at the shade which, now that she’d finished her piece, slowly faded.
“If I didn’t know better, Isfrael,” Faraday said softly, “I could swear that you were Barsarbe’s son, not mine. What has happened to you? Does absolute power corrupt absolutely?
“My friends.” Now Faraday turned to the Avar and spread her arms wide in entreaty as Barsarbe had. She closed her eyes briefly, and prayed for strength.
“My friends. You cannot hide here. When Qeteb rises he will tear these forests apart as a child will tear apart a pastry tart. See.”
The entire grove was overwhelmed in vision.
A mighty wind blew in from the west. It billowed with clouds of grey dust and flames of fire, and among the wind strode a giant who reached to the sky. With one step he was over the Nordra, and with another he straddled the Plains of Tare. The next step brought his foot crashing down in the Silent Woman Woods.
Trees splintered and screamed. Fire leapt from grove to grove. The giant roared, and when he roared the entire forest disintegrated.
There was nothing left save splinters of wood littering the bared soil.
Nothing, save the huddled masses of the Avar.
The giant bellowed again, and lifted his foot to bring it roaring down on a hapless Clan group.
It was enough. Faraday ended the vision.
“Qeteb will destroy you,” she said softly. “I present you with a choice. Take the path I will make for you into Sanctuary, and perhaps have the chance to rebuild. Or die here, and die knowing that everything you love will die with you.”
Isfrael stared at her. “You are no longer Tree Friend,” he said. “You relinquished that right when you went—”
“She never relinquished that right in our hearts.”
A grey-bearded man stood carefully upright, using the shoulder of his daughter to steady himself. “I remember you, Faraday Tree Friend,” he said, “although I was but a hotheaded young man when you stood here in this grove and gave us the StarMan. Faraday…Faraday…then you told us that you would not lead us into the future. Now?”
“Now?” Faraday glanced at Isfrael, then looked back at the old man. “Then I said I would provide you with the path. I thought that path was to be Isfrael. I was wrong.”
Isfrael went rigid in disbelief. With those words Faraday had effectively disinherited him! Hatred surged through him, but Isfrael did not speak.