“Faraday?”
“StarMan. Loman fades,” Arne called to him.
Axis stared one more moment into the snow, unaware there were tears in his eyes, then he turned on his heel and strode over to the fire Arne shared with Brode and Loman.
Loman had been growing weaker over the past day; Axis was not surprised that he should sink to the ground and refuse to get up now.
He squatted down beside Loman; Brode the other side, Arne at his head. Loman was mumbling something under his breath.
Brode looked up and met Axis’ eyes. The Avar man’s own eyes were red-rimmed and sallow, and there were great hollows in the papery skin of his cheeks—Brode was not long for this world either.
“He remembers the pathways of his youth, StarMan, and he seeks now the pathways to the Sacred Grove.”
“Will he find them here?”
“Yes. Loman is strong, and his feet will find the paths.”
He waited several more minutes, his eyes gentle as they studied Loman, then he looked back at Axis.
“We’ll reach Gorgrael’s nest tomorrow, StarMan. He is close. Surely you can feel him, too?”
“Yes,” Axis said. “All day there has been blackness gathering in the corners of my eyes, and dark notes taint the chords of the Star Dance. He is close.”
Brode nodded, and they bent back over Loman.
Faraday walked through the snow, her head bowed, her hands grasping the cloak close. It was cold, yet the ache in her heart was colder. Every time she left the Sacred Grove now she said goodbye as if it were the last time, treasuring every extra moment she shared with him, for she never knew when she would—if she would—be able to go back.
It was almost fully dark now, and Faraday was late. She hurried towards the faint glow of firelight she could see in the distance. She squinted ahead. Axis, Arne and Brode were grouped about a huddled figure on the ground. Loman. Her fingers tightened further about the cloak and she increased her pace. Loman would appreciate it if she were there to see his feet onto the Sacred Paths.
A strange whisper, barely discernible in the night, ran along the edge of the wind.
Faraday paused, the cloak wrapping itself about her body in the wind. Nothing. She hurried on.
There, again, a soft whisper along the wind and, this time, a hint of movement to her right.
She stopped again, every nerve afire. Her fingers pushed fine strands of hair from her eyes, and she concentrated hard, peering through the gloom, listening for any unusual sounds.
“Faraday.” A whisper, so soft she almost did not hear it.
A whisper…and a soft giggle.
“Faraday.”
She stared, hoping it were her imagination, hoping she were wrong.
The flickering campfire caught her eye again, and she looked back. Axis had raised his head and was staring into the snow in her direction, but just as she was about to call out the figure on the ground convulsed and Axis bent down again.
“Faraday.”
No mistaking it this time, and Faraday closed her eyes and moaned.
“Faraday? It is I, Timozel.”
She mustered all her courage and looked to her right. Timozel was half-crouched in the snow some four or five paces away, his hand extended, his eyes gleaming.
It was not the Timozel she remembered.
“Help me, please,” he whispered.
“Timozel…go away.”
“Faraday, please, help me. Help me!”
Don’t do this, Timozel, please don’t do this! she pleaded in her mind, but if Timozel heard her he paid her no attention.
“He has trapped me, Faraday! Trapped me! Forced me into his service.”
“No,” she said, but she was unable to look away, unable to call for help. The force of the Prophecy lay like a dead weight about her shoulders; nothing she could do now could alter its abominable course.
The red doe froze, frightened by a movement among the trees.
“Do you know when he trapped me, Faraday?” Now Timozel had crept a little closer. “At Fernbrake Lake when Yr laid me under her enchantment. Yes, yes indeed. While you bathed in the light of the Mother, Gorgrael was sinking his talons into my soul.”
“No,” she said, louder this time. Not then, oh, please, Mother! Not then!
“Yes, then.” Timozel injected as much pitifulness into his voice as he could. “I’m as much a victim as you are, Faraday. Please help me. I want to escape. Trust me.”
She stared, her dark liquid eyes enormous, and her entire body trembled.
“Go away,” she muttered, and the wind caught at her cloak so that it tore back from her body.
Now Timozel was almost at her feet, and his fingers fluttered at the hem of her gown. “Please, Faraday. I want to find the Light again. Please, Faraday! Help me. You’re my friend. Help me!”
No! she screamed in her mind but she could not voice it. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Axis rising from the fire, a hand to his eyes. Then her hair whipped free and, caught by the wind, obscured her vision.
No! But the Prophecy had her in its grip now, and it would not let her go.
The doe lifted one foreleg, her ears twitching, staring with eyes full of frightened memory, then she…
“Trust me,” Timozel whispered at her feet. Trust me.
No!
“Axis,” she cried. “Forgive me!”
…turned and…
Timozel’s hand snatched at her ankle.
“Gotcha!” he crowed.
…bounded away through the trees, light dappling her back with gold. She ran free, unfettered.
Axis took a deep breath, then sighed. Sadness overwhelmed him; he had not thought to be so affected by Loman’s passing.
“He runs free now, his feet light along the Sacred Paths,” Brode said.
“Would you like me…?”
“Yes. Thank you StarMan.”
Arne and Brode stepped back and Axis knelt a moment by the body. Then he too stepped back, and Loman’s body flared into light and then searing fire.
All said their private farewells.
It was later, much later, when Axis looked up and realised that Faraday had not returned. At first he was not disturbed, for sometimes she spent two or even three hours away in the Sacred Grove. But as the night wore on Axis became frantic.
Arne held onto his StarMan’s arm. “Do not let him trap you,” he rasped between tight teeth, for it took all of his strength to hold Axis back. “If he has her then we will find her soon enough. On the morrow, Brode says.”
“Oh Stars,” Axis said. “He has the wrong one. What have I done to her?”
Axis would win, he was sure of it—he had to be sure of it—but could he also save Faraday’s life, or was that already gone?
She was numb with cold and with terror. Timozel held her arm with talon-like fingers, and her delicate skin had bruised hours ago. Now he dragged her down a long ice-tunnel. Creatures leaped and cavorted on the other side of the ice-walls, their shapes distorted by the ice, but Faraday was beyond caring if she saw them clearly or not.
At the end of the ice-tunnel was a door, and Faraday knew what lay beyond it.
“I trusted you, Timozel,” she managed to say.
“Fool.”
“Doesn’t my trust mean something? You promised once to be my Champion, and to protect me…then what is this you do now?”
Timozel stopped, and Faraday sank to the floor. Her gown had half torn away from her, and her flesh was marked both by the cold and by Timozel’s cruel hands.
“You broke all the vows that bound us!” he screamed. “You broke them and released me to Gorgrael’s tender mercy! Don’t weep now that I break any trust between us.”
He took a vicious breath. “Look at me.”
She turned her head even further away.
“Look at me!”
She responded to the wrench on her arm if not to his voice, and raised her head slowly.
“Harlot,”
he said. “If you reap the fruits of your lusts now then so be it.”
His fingers tightened and Faraday could not help a small sob of pain.
“Light your face with gladness, Faraday, for before you waits Gorgrael. He will be your true Lord, and we will sit by the fire and drink fine wine from crystal glasses for ever and ever and ever.”
Her eyes widened at the madness in his voice, but then the door at the end of the corridor creaked and she jerked her head in that direction.
Timozel hauled Faraday to her feet. He swung her into his arms and strode down the corridor towards the open door. Behind it a shadow flickered across the floor.
Faraday buried her face in Timozel’s chest, hating even to do that, but Timozel was infinitely preferable to what lay beyond. She tried to reach the Mother’s power within her, but that was gone, smothered by the blanket of the Destroyer’s dark enchantments. Faraday prayed that in those final paces before the door Timozel would somehow see reason, would somehow remember the friendship and loyalty he had once professed, and would turn and run with her into safety and into the light.
But she knew he would not.
She could feel the temperature change the instant they crossed the threshold. It was warmer here. She whimpered, screwing her eyes still further shut, and tried to contract into as small a ball in Timozel’s arms as she could.
“Faraday.”
The name was spoken with a sickening hiss and a slap of tongue, as if the creature had trouble with it.
“How I have longed for you.”
And then she felt Timozel’s stance alter, stiffen, as if he…
“No!” she screamed, and Timozel passed her into the Destroyer’s arms.
She fought as hard as she could, she kicked and bit and scratched (and gagged when she felt the creature’s lizard-like skin against her own bare flesh and mouth and fingers), but she made no impression on him, and he laughed and wheezed with triumph.
“Go!” he screamed at Timozel. “Go!”
They sat before the fire, with fragile crystal glasses of fine wine in their hands.
Gorgrael was half asleep, eyes lidded as he looked at Faraday in the chair opposite. She had managed to pull the all-but-destroyed gown about her again, and her hand trembled uncontrollably as she held the glass. Most of her wine had spilled down her arm and lay in a crimson pool in her lap.
Gorgrael was more than replete. He was prepared to be generous. It would be a pity to kill her. A shame. Again he wondered if he might keep her. Perhaps he could dispose of Axis without the need to destroy Faraday in the process. He felt almost tender, certainly protective. She had not been willing, but willingness would come in time.
Timozel sat in front of the fire, between the two. He could feel the comforting touch of vision, and he knew that Gorgrael had won.
The battles were over. Timozel sat before the leaping fire with his Lord, Faraday at their side. All was well. Timozel had found the light and he had found his destiny.
They drank from crystal glasses, sipping fine wine.
They had won.
71
FIVE HANDSPANS OF SHARPENED STEEL
In the early morning light, Brode was clearly dying, but he insisted on taking them to the Destroyer’s door.
“I can feel him, StarMan,” he wheezed “Not far.”
“This is between him and me,” Axis said gently. “Brode, you have done enough. Wait here for my return.” He looked at Arne standing next to Brode, his arm supporting the Avar man. “You too, Arne. Wait here for me. You cannot protect me against Gorgrael.”
Both merely stared at him, their eyes hard with determination.
“Please.” Axis tried one more time, knowing it was useless. “Stay here. The snow has cleared. I will leave a fire for you.”
They had woken in the pre-dawn darkness to find that sometime overnight the snow had ceased to fall. Even the wind had abated. Axis wasn’t sure if Gorgrael still had any control over the weather; if he had, then perhaps he wanted them to walk the last morning in pure light.
So that they could know exactly what they would miss when dead, perhaps.
Axis looked away from Brode and Arne across the tundra. Everything was flat white, sparkling painfully as the first rays of the sun caught the snow crystals.
Where was Faraday? Did Gorgrael have her? Or had she decided sensibly to stay in the Sacred Grove?
Axis knew that Gorgrael had her. He could feel the Destroyer, feel his malignant presence seep like a dark stain over this desolate landscape.
And he could feel its joy. That had changed overnight. Yesterday Gorgrael’s presence had been malignant, yes, but it had also been cautious. Now it gloated. It almost danced across the snowscape in its glee.
Axis shivered. He bent down and picked up the Rainbow Sceptre. He wasn’t sure how he would use it, but he had some idea…and for that idea he had Azhure to thank. He stared at it for some minutes, stared at the head wrapped in the cloth that Faraday had torn from her gown, then abruptly thrust it into a loop on his weapon belt.
His fingers slipped to the sword resting in its scabbard, and he absently fingered its hilt. Today, he hoped, it would find a different scabbard to rest in.
He lifted his head and smiled at the two men. It was a dazzling smile, full of hope and courage, and the men could not help but respond with smiles of their own.
“Come, my friends,” he said. “Shall we go? Brode? Which way?”
Brode nodded north-east and grunted as Arne’s arm tightened about him.
Axis glanced at him with concern, but the man picked up his pace after a few minutes, and soon managed to walk by himself.
They walked for three hours. Their eyes hurt from the glare coming off the snow, and after a while they had to pull the hoods of their cloaks close to try to cut down the glare.
Towards noon Axis stopped, and stared to the west.
“What is it?” Arne asked.
“The waves,” Axis said. He turned his head. “Can you hear them?”
Arne and Brode both shook their heads.
“The waves of the Iskruel Ocean,” Axis continued. “Beating along the Icebear Coast.” He paused, remembering, then shrugged and continued the march.
They saw it mid-afternoon, rising in the distance.
“Stars,” Axis breathed in awe, “but it is beautiful!”
He had not expected anything like this. He knew that his brother had a bolt-hole somewhere, and he had always imagined it to be dark and festering—nothing like this prism that speared from the snow plain like a pure white hand rising jubilantly from the grave. It was gigantic but graceful at the same time, and the sun glinted off it in a thousand different colours.
“Ice Fortress,” Brode gasped, and Axis glanced at him.
But he could not keep his eyes from the beautiful structure rising to the north-east. He did not think he had the imagination to create such a thing himself, and he wondered at his brother who, though so dark and cruel, could still create such beauty.
“Beauty is as beauty does,” Arne remarked cryptically.
“You’re right,” Axis said. “Brode, are you strong enough to continue?”
“I want to see the Destroyer dead before I die,” Brode said. “I will be all right, StarMan.”
Axis nodded, and without another word the three men crunched their way through the snow.
They took over two hours to reach the Ice Fortress, and they made their final approach through the huge shadow that it spread across the snow plain. It was the shadow, Axis thought, that gave away the prism’s true nature. The prism might rise true and beautiful to the sun, but in reality it spread a shadow as dark as a raven’s wing over the land. Pristine on the outside, inside beat a heart of darkness.
As they stood close to the ice walls Axis made one final attempt to persuade the two men to wait for him outside. But both were resolute.
“Treachery lurks within,” Arne said.
Brode just shook his head, in
capable of speech now.
And so Axis nodded. Inside lay their certain death, he was sure of that, but every man deserves to choose the way he dies, and these two had made plain their choice time and time again.
“Let’s go,” Axis said, and felt a nervous thrill at the thought that, finally, he was to meet his half-brother.
Prophecy.
They entered via a small doorway set in the southern face of the fortress. It was opened and unguarded, and Axis could feel Gorgrael’s presence strongly now. It lurked like a foul smell—that was the only way Axis could describe it to himself and, looking at the expression on Brode’s face, he knew that the Avar man reacted similarly to Gorgrael’s taint.
Arne drew his sword and pushed past Axis; his face was calm, his manner intent. Arne had no doubts about his mission and never thought about whether or not his actions might be foolhardy.
Axis followed, Brode limping determinedly in the rear.
The interior of the prism was a maze. Ice tunnels led up and down and sideways at crazy angles. Steps ended in glassy walls and rose from ceilings. Time and time again they had to retrace their steps as they found themselves in empty chambers and meaningless cul-de-sacs.
Time lost all meaning.
It had been late afternoon when they entered the prism, but the light inside never changed as the hours passed. It shone patiently through the walls, rippled off ice surfaces, scattered along floors and ceilings. It was impossible to tell time except by their own sense of fatigue, and that was no longer reliable.
Brode clutched at his chest, his eyes sunken and grey, and scrambled along as best he could behind the crimson figure ahead of him, and the darker, sterner figure ahead of that. Everything seemed wrong, out of kilter in this abominable construction. He could feel the crazy mind that had constructed it, feel its hatred and its need.
And he could feel its Avar blood, feel its resemblance to himself. Brode had embraced the Avar creed of non-violence his entire life, had believed utterly in it, but now he could see what a sham it was. The Avar were people of innate violence. It might not express itself in physical acts, but in attitude and in way of life. In the violent test the Banes administered to the children of promise; in the tempers and angers that flared to the surface at the slightest provocation; in Barsarbe’s reaction to and spite towards Azhure.