Gorgrael smiled. “Good.”
69
TUNDRA
Axis shouted, argued, pleaded and even threatened, but Faraday stood quietly and let him rave.
“I am coming, too,” she said once he’d finished.
Axis had turned to the five Avar, but they stood quietly, politely. It was Tree Friend’s business if she came or not, and it was not for them to dissuade her.
Shra was upset, but neither did she try to dissuade Faraday.
So Axis capitulated, but he was afraid for her.
They travelled light. All had cloaks, but they were a strange sight. Axis strode wrapped in his crimson cloak, golden tunic beneath; Faraday wrapped in a green cloak over the insubstantial robe that the Mother had given her; her only other clothing was some soft leather boots. Arne was the most sensibly dressed, with his stout boots and thick felt clothes, but the Avar men managed well enough in their tunics and leggings, although their boots hardly coped with the snow and ice when they hit the tundra.
Surprisingly, Arne got on quite well with the Avar men. Perhaps there was something in his dour personality that Brode and his companions related to, or perhaps it was that Arne appreciated the woodcraft and tracking skills that the forest men demonstrated. Whatever, he spent most of the days and the evenings talking quietly with one or more of the Avar men.
From the Earth Tree Grove they travelled north-east through the forest. Three of the men carried packs with light supplies of food, but Brode said they could scavenge well enough while in the forest, and once on the tundra there would likely be snow rabbits and birds they could catch for their supper.
At night Arne would help the Avar build two small fires; he shared one with the Avar, Axis and Faraday sat at the other.
For their first evening Axis and Faraday sat in virtual silence. They shared the food Brode handed them, their conversation desultory, and then sat in silence, watching the flames crackle. There was so much that Axis wanted to say to Faraday, but he did not know where to start. He thought about telling her some amusing stories about Caelum, then decided that might not be a good idea. He wondered if he could tell her some of his adventures in the west, but too many of them included Azhure, and while Axis knew that Faraday and Azhure were good friends, he still did not feel comfortable talking of Azhure to her.
I have built so many barriers between us, he thought sourly, pushing at the embers with the toe of his boot. Once we could have talked and laughed…but once she believed the lies that I told her.
Damn it, man! he berated himself, talk to her! He opened his mouth, but just at that moment Faraday rose gracefully, silently, and walked into the nearby bushes.
Axis dropped his eyes quickly. No doubt she was attending to her private needs and would not appreciate his curious eyes following her. But after half an hour he became worried, and asked Arne and Brode if either had seen which way she went.
Arne shrugged and pointed to the spot in the bushes where she had disappeared. “There, StarMan.”
Axis fidgeted, his eyes dark with worry.
“She is of the trees, StarMan,” Brode remarked. “She will find her way home.”
But Brode’s comment did not appease Axis. He paced about the fire, then, his cloak swirling, pushed into the bushes.
He wandered for perhaps half an hour, calling Faraday’s name, growing more desperate by the minute. Had she fallen and hurt herself? Had Gorgrael, by some dark art, managed to snatch her from the very forest itself? Then, just as he was about to return and stir the others into searching the forest, she was behind him. “Axis, shush, you will wake half Tencendor.”
“Where have you been?” he cried, seizing her by the shoulders.
She tensed, and Axis let her go. “I have been safe, Axis. Do not be concerned for me.”
And she would say no more. She returned to the fire, rolled herself in her cloak, and fell asleep.
Axis stood a long time, staring at her deep in sleep. Then he, too, settled down for the night, but it was a long time before he fell asleep. Occasionally he would reach out and touch the Sceptre by his side, but mostly he stared across the fire at Faraday, his eyes haunted with memories and guilt.
In the morning she rose early and again disappeared for almost an hour.
This time Axis managed to stay his fears, although he relaxed visibly when she finally returned. She snatched a few mouthfuls of food, then smiled at the men. “I’m ready.”
And so they set off.
Faraday did this every morning and every evening. When she returned she always had a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and sometimes the smile broadened when she saw Axis, and her green eyes would gleam with a secret emotion that he could not fathom.
“We all have to eat,” she said on the one occasion when Axis managed to force her to say anything about her absences at all.
The journey was easy through the Avarinheim, but cold, bleak weather met them the day they reached the forest’s northern border. They stood among the last ranks of the trees for almost half an hour, watching the snow drift across the flat tundra. To their left, the Icescarp Alps rose in waves to the west, and Axis spared them a long look, but to the north and east there was nothing but flat snow land.
“Does anyone know how far this stretches?” Axis asked the Avar.
Loman, of the BareHollow Clan, answered him. “No, StarMan. No-one knows. Who would travel this distance from the trees?”
Axis cursed himself for not asking the Ravensbundmen if they had been this far.
“It is just flat snow, StarMan,” Brode said quietly. “Flat snow to the north and, if you were to walk far enough to the west or east, rolling grey seas that stretch into infinity.”
“And how are you going to find Gorgrael?” Axis thought he could feel an infinitesimal pull at his soul, as if a tiny claw worried at it, but the feeling was directionless and, apart from heading north, Axis had no idea where to go.
“We will know,” Brode said, with certainty, but when Axis glanced at him he could see lines of worry about the man’s eyes.
When Brode saw him looking, he shrugged, trying to make light of his concern. “It is the trees, StarMan. None of us have ever spent much, if any, time away from them. Only the Banes have travelled south to Fernbrake Lake, and their power enabled them to live for so long without the shade above them.”
“Come,” Faraday said, “we waste time,” and she set off alone into the northern wastes. Axis hurried after her, the Sceptre safely in his arm, and behind him came Arne and the Avar.
Gorgrael spied the small group with his mind’s eye the moment they had left the trees and set foot on the tundra.
“There they are!” he crowed, and shared the vision with Timozel. “There they are!”
He turned to Timozel standing by the doorway. “Go now, and do not fail me.”
Timozel nodded curtly, and then was gone.
And so they went on. The wind was fierce, but it did not hinder them too badly, and the snow was cold, but it was compacted down into a relatively easy walking surface.
The cold and the snow reminded Axis of Gorken Pass.
“We might find Timozel out here somewhere, Faraday,” he said.
Faraday blinked. She had not thought of Timozel in a very long time. Poor Timozel. What had happened to him since he had fled Carlon so long ago?
“Why do you expect that, Axis? Have you had word of him?”
“Timozel led Gorgrael’s Skraeling army, Faraday, and escaped east after the trees destroyed the Skraelings in Gorken Pass. I have no doubts that I will find him lurking in the snow here somewhere.”
Faraday stopped dead and stared at him. “Timozel led Gorgrael’s army?”
“You didn’t know? Oh, Faraday.” He reached out a hand, but she stepped back.
“Timozel led Gorgrael’s army?”
Axis cursed himself. He had forgotten how isolated Faraday had been while she was planting. “Faraday, Timozel has changed. He
has…he has become the Traitor of the Prophecy.”
“Oh, no!”
Faraday had been very close to Timozel in the months leading up to her marriage, and although the closeness had begun to pall once she had married Borneheld, she still liked Timozel. She knew that he had harboured dark thoughts, but this? No. “No!”
The others had stopped now and were looking back at them, but Axis waved to them to keep their distance.
“Faraday, please, listen to me. Timozel is in league with Gorgrael. If you see him out there in the snow, do not talk to him. For Stars’ sake, Faraday, do not trust him!”
She took a huge breath. “Timozel!”
“Faraday?”
“Yes. Yes, I hear what you say, Axis. I will be careful,” she said.
Then she turned and walked towards the others.
Axis stood and let the snow swirl about him for a minute, watching her walk stiff-backed, her knuckles colourless where they clutched at her cloak.
That night Axis found the words to say.
He waited until Faraday had returned from her mysterious walk, waited until she had wrapped herself in her cloak and was preparing to sleep, and then spoke.
“Faraday.”
She opened one eye and blinked at him.
“Faraday. You once said that it was too late for me to say anything to you, too late for me to say anything to heal the hurt I have caused you.”
She sat up slowly, her hands clutching the cloak tightly about her, her face pale beneath the green hood.
“Faraday, I hope that is not so.”
“Axis—”
“No, let me just talk for a while, Faraday. Will you listen? Will you promise that you will not walk off into the night and leave me here alone?”
She nodded.
He fixed her eyes with his own. “You told me that what we once had between us was gone, no more.” He laughed, bitterly. “That I was free. Well, our vows were broken, yes, but my conscience was fettered in chains so heavy their singing kept me awake many a long night.”
“You do not regret marrying Azhure?”
“No…no I do not. If I have a regret it is that she did not walk into my life first, because then I would not have hurt you so much…no! No, that was the wrong thing to say. Faraday, I have never regretted falling in love with you. I only regret the way I treated you. You are too remarkable to have been treated the way you were.”
He paused, and stared down at his hands. When he looked back up again his eyes were full of pain and self-loathing. “I used to curse Borneheld for being a bad husband—but who treated you worse, Faraday? Borneheld…or me?”
“Axis!” Faraday stumbled about the fire and put her arms about him. He had begun to cry, and she rocked and soothed him for several minutes.
“I’m so sorry, Faraday. Oh gods, that’s such an inadequate phrase to trot out now, but I am so sorry for all I have done to you.”
“You treated me wretchedly, Axis, but I cannot lay all the blame at your feet. Yes, you could have told me about Azhure sooner, but whenever you did it, however you did it, I would have been hurt. Would it have been best to have told me the instant that Borneheld lay dead at our feet?” She smiled. “Imagine, Axis, you turning to me and saying, ‘Well, it’s been nice, Faraday, good to see you after all this time, but there’s someone else.’”
Axis smiled wanly.
“And it was I who came to your apartment that night and seduced you. Poor man. But, oh Axis, I had dreamed about you for so long, hungered for you for so long, that I couldn’t wait.”
She dropped her hands and shifted in close to his body. She did not think Azhure would mind. Not this once. “There would have been no kind moment to tell me, Axis. No kind way. As it was I had eight days with you. Eight days, eight glorious nights.”
She paused, and her mood became sombre. “Yes, some fault certainly can be laid at your feet, Axis, but most, I think, can be laid at the feet of the Prophecy and the damned Prophet who penned it. None of us has been able to escape its clutches. It took me, poor simple Faraday, and tore my life into shreds and then cast them to the wind. You, too. And Azhure. And half a dozen others.”
“Would you that you were still Faraday, daughter of Earl Isend?”
“Would you that you were still Axis, BattleAxe of the Seneschal?”
They both hesitated, then laughed softly. “No,” Axis said, “but I suspect that there are moments when you yearn for the peace of your youth. I have gained more than I have lost. You?”
She waited a long while before she answered. “We both have learned and gained a great deal, Axis. You have given me more joy than I think you realise.”
He pushed her face back. “What do you mean?”
“Axis.” Her eyes stared fiercely into his. “Axis, if anything happens to me, if…if anything happens, promise me that you will go to the Sacred Grove before you go home to Azhure.”
“Faraday!” He was appalled by the naked pain in her eyes. “Nothing will happen to—”
“Don’t start to lie to me again!” she snapped. “Both of us walk into danger more extreme than either have faced before. Don’t start lying to me again now!”
“I will protect you—”
“Promise!”
“I promise, Faraday. If anything happens to you then I will go to the Sacred Grove before I return to Azhure.”
She sighed and relaxed against his body. “Thank you, Axis.”
He started as a thought occurred to him. “Is that where you go in the mornings and evenings?”
“Yes, Axis. But please do not ask me why.”
He nodded, and held her close, rocking her now. “What will you do, Faraday, once the Prophecy has let you go? What will you do once your days are again your own?”
Her voice was cold when she answered. “I do not think the Prophecy will ever let me go, Axis. I think I will stay fast in its talons for eternity.”
“No! Faraday!” He stroked her face, wiping the tears from her eyes.
She shuddered, then sat up. For a long moment she looked at him, then she leaned forward and kissed him. She let it deepen until she could stand the pain no more, then she pulled away.
“No, Axis,” she said. “We can be friends, you and I. Nothing more. You would lie yet again if you tried to be anything more to me. Axis, I wish you well.”
She was saying goodbye, and he knew it. “And I you,” he said softly. “I have never wished you anything but.”
She nodded, knowing he was telling the truth, then stepped around the fire to her sleeping place.
Neither slept very much that night.
He watched them through the day and into the night. He watched as Axis held Faraday under the stars, watched as they kissed, and Gorgrael relaxed for the first time in many months.
“Good,” he whispered. “He does love her. Yes, yes, yes, the Prophecy brings the Lover to me!”
Far away in his even darker hole of existence, the Dark Man smiled to himself. “Good girl,” he murmured. “Good, good girl.”
Four days out from the forest the Avar began to die.
It was not so much the cold that killed them, for Axis could wield enchantments that kept them in a small pocket of warmth and with fires at night. It was simple tree-hunger. The Avar could not exist without the love and shelter of the trees.
The first two died on the night of the fourth day, wrapped in their cloaks before the fire.
“They had walked too far from the forest. Their hearts have given out,” Brode explained as Axis, pale and shaken, stepped back from the bodies in the chill light of morning.
“Then for the Stars’ sakes, man!” Axis said roughly, “take yourself and your companions back to the Avarinheim.”
Brode shook his head sadly. “No, StarMan, for then how would you find your way? We can feel Gorgrael.” He clutched his hand to his breast. “His blood calls to us.”
“Damn it, I can find my way, surely? Just tell me what direction to go!”
/>
Again Brode shook his head. “One of our people birthed him, StarMan, and now we would do our part to bury him. We have tarried too long to help in this fight, and I and my companions will not turn back.”
“But you will die.”
“We knew that when we set out.”
The next morning another of the Avar men was dead, and Loman and Brode were grey about the eyes and mouth, and their hands trembled as they shook the night’s snow off their cloaks.
Axis stared long and hard at them, but they turned away without speaking and began to trudge slowly north through the snow.
70
“TRUST ME”
So they marched on. Brode and Loman led them ever north, then north-north-east. The weather became colder and more bitter and, despite Axis’ enchantments, managed to penetrate to their bones.
Axis sometimes heard either Brode or Loman, he knew not which, crying in the night, and his heart cried with them. But he knew he probably would never find Gorgrael’s nest without the Avar—or Gorgrael would make sure that he found it only on his own terms. He could have spent weeks out here, wandering until his spirit failed him and despair consumed him—then, Rainbow Sceptre or no, Gorgrael would have found him easy meat.
Eight days after leaving the forest they stopped one evening. None of the men had been able to catch any game for two days now, and the last reserves of food had been eaten that morning. There would be nothing to quiet their stomachs when they camped for the night but the snow they could warm at Axis’ magical fires.
Faraday sat very quiet, the firelight flickering over her face and her outstretched hands. Axis worried about her. She’d grown even thinner and more fragile in this march north; now dark shadows circled her eyes and her hair had lost some of its gloss.
“Faraday?”
She rose. “I will be back soon, Axis.” She paused as if she wanted to say something more, but the moment passed, and she was gone in the swirling snow.