Starman

  Beat

  …of the Star Dance.

  And through it stared Axis, his concentration unwavering, his eyes blue and fierce on Gorgrael, and he took one more step forward.

  Gorgrael acted. He did the only thing he could. He did the only thing likely to break Axis’ concentration…the only thing prophesied to destroy Axis’ concentration.

  As Axis took one more step forward, as the cloud and power of the Dark Music faded into impotence, Gorgrael tore Faraday’s belly apart.

  Something inside Axis tore with it, something railed and coiled and screamed, but he did not let his concentration fail him, not now, not when he was so close.

  He could not, would not, help her.

  As the pain ripped her mind apart, as the last shreds of her sanity disappeared, and with the last breath she was to be allowed, Faraday screamed into the chamber…

  Mother!

  And Gorgrael screamed with Faraday, his voice triumphant, and tore out her throat.

  And through it all, as Faraday’s torn body sprayed blood about the chamber and his concentration threatened to shatter about him, Axis thought he saw a woman gather Faraday into her arms, gather her close and kiss her mouth with her lips, and that was the only thing that enabled him to keep the shield of his concentration unviolated, but he screamed nevertheless…

  …and somewhere far, far away Azhure lowered her face to her hands and screamed with him as Faraday died in her place and the baby that slithered onto the bed between Rivkah’s legs opened his mouth and screamed.

  Gorgrael wasn’t sure what was happening. Axis had screamed, but the power of the Rainbow Sceptre had not faltered, and the rainbow beams continued to sweep about the chamber, chasing down every last filament of darkness that remained.

  How much did he have to tear Faraday apart before Axis’ concentration faltered?

  Gorgrael lifted a clawed hand to shred her some more—perhaps all that was needed was one final swipe. But Faraday was no longer there. Gorgrael’s eyes blinked in surprise. One moment her body hung limp in his arms, the next she was gone, and all he was left with was the feel and smell and taste of her blood to remind him of her warmth. And now he shrieked, for Axis strode forth, vibrating with power, and the expression on his face was not one Gorgrael had ever wanted to be faced with.

  Axis’ concentration had not failed.

  Realisation hit Gorgrael.

  He had shredded the wrong woman.

  The Dark Man had lied to him. It had been the raven-haired wench who had been the key, the true Lover…and Gorgrael had got it wrong.

  He had lost, and he knew it.

  He dropped to his knees and extended his hands in appeal, his great silver eyes huge with horror, and he gibbered and slobbered and pleaded.

  “Axis, I am your brother! I am StarDrifter’s son! Have mercy! I have never had the love and warmth that you enjoyed. I have been trapped, trapped by Prophecy and the Prophet’s machinations as much as you. I am your brother! I am your brother! I am your—”

  Axis lifted the Sceptre above his head, wild light still pulsing from the jewels of its head, and drove its rod deep into Gorgrael’s chest like a stave, leaning down with his full weight as Gorgrael fell onto his back, his wings and limbs writhing helplessly, and Axis let the power and beauty of the Star Dance flood into his brother’s body and soul.

  The wood of the Earth Tree pierced Gorgrael’s heart and burst it asunder. Something black and loathsome shuddered through his body, then rippled through the entire Ice Fortress.

  And then, with a final convulsion, Gorgrael lay still.

  Axis felt such life and vitality flood through him that he staggered, and he would have fallen but for the fact that he still leaned on the Sceptre buried in Gorgrael’s chest.

  But anguish and loss flooded him too, and Axis bent down over the Sceptre, over his brother’s body, and sobbed.

  “Faraday!”

  Arne staggered to his feet, bleeding from ears and nose, his entire body still shaking from the power and the horror that had flooded out from between the cracks in the panels of the wooden door. He stood, trying to collect himself, trying to believe that he was still alive.

  And then he heard the wall beside him start to splinter.

  Before his horrified eyes a hairline crack ran down its length, then it shifted and grew until it was wide enough for him to fit his forefinger into.

  And then another crack formed, then another, and soon the entire wall was breeding cracks, and they writhed and grew as if they had a life all their own.

  “Axis!” Arne swore. They were standing in the heart of a gigantic, shifting, cracking mountain of ice!

  “Axis!”

  He wrenched open the door, almost tearing his shoulder muscles in his desperate effort, and stared into the chamber.

  Against the far wall stood a fireplace, and before it Axis knelt hunched over something dark and loathsome, leaning on…a stake?

  Arne ran across the room and seized his lord by his shoulders. “Axis! Get up!”

  Axis raised his head slowly. “Arne?”

  “Get up!” Arne screamed again, trying to pull Axis away, trying to haul him upright. Was the man wounded? There was blood spattered across the front of his tunic.

  “Get up!”

  Axis blinked and shook his head. His hands were still wrapped about the head of the Sceptre, and light still shone between his fingers. Below the head, the rod ran straight until it disappeared into Gorgrael’s body—which, Axis was nauseated to see, was falling apart. Already flesh was dropping from rib bones, and rib bones themselves were bending and caving inwards.

  “Come,” Arne said, gently now, “it is over.”

  Axis sighed. “Yes, it is over.” He rose to one foot, every movement an effort, and as he stood he wrenched the Rainbow Sceptre from Gorgrael’s chest cavity. With that, the body fell apart completely and, as it disintegrated, so Axis felt the floor tremble beneath his feet.

  Arne flung Axis’ cloak about the man’s shoulders and dragged him towards the doorway.

  “Faraday is dead,” Axis said.

  “Then live for her sake!” Arne cried. “If you die here, the Destroyer has won. Come. Axis! Come!”

  Axis finally moved. He took one step, then another, then stumbled for the door, Arne behind him.

  As he passed the scrap of green cloth on the floor he bent down and snatched it, wrapping it about the head of the Sceptre.

  The Rainbow light died, but Axis could still feel the rod pulse in his hands.

  “Faraday,” he said once more, and left the chamber.

  They ran through toppling walls and ice spears that plunged from crumbling ceilings. The maze of corridors buckled and slipped, and Axis and Arne fell time and time again, one helping the other to his feet, one hauling the other from danger and death by his hair or by a hand buried in folds of cloth. Axis never knew how they emerged from the Ice Fortress alive, but emerge they did, to stagger into sunlight.

  Sunlight?

  Had a whole night passed without his knowing?

  Thirty paces from the Ice Fortress they stopped, the breath rasping in their throats in the frigid air, and they turned and looked behind them.

  The entire Fortress was collapsing inwards; collapsing, Axis realised, towards the central chamber and Gorgrael’s body. A sudden and infinitely strange thought hit him—this beautiful ice prism had been the outward manifestation of the beauty that Gorgrael craved within his own person.

  And just for the moment that the thought survived, Axis realised the full loneliness and horror of Gorgrael’s existence. Sympathy almost flared then, but at that instant the Fortress collapsed completely and both thought and sympathy disappeared from Axis’ mind as if they had never existed.

  It was over.

  Axis bent to one knee in the snow, his head resting in one hand. Arne stood helplessly beside him, feeling something of the man’s grief.

  For a long time they stood there, a cold northerl
y breeze riffling through their hair and fluttering their cloaks, two men frozen into the frozen landscape.

  Axis raised his head. He rose to his feet, the movement stiff and painful, and handed the Rainbow Sceptre to Arne.

  “Here, take this.”

  “But, StarMan.” Arne stumbled, taking the Sceptre as though it were red-hot. “What do you want me to do with—”

  “Take it,” Axis said, his voice harsh. “Take it back to Sigholt and give it to Azhure. She can look after it.”

  Arne’s eyes hardened with determination. “My place is with—”

  “Your place is to do what I tell you!” Axis screamed, and Arne recoiled a step at the pain and anguish he saw in Axis’ eyes.

  “There are no Traitors standing at my back now,” Axis continued more moderately, regretting the harsh words. “It is over, Arne. And where I go now, I can only go alone. Please, take the Sceptre and go.”

  Arne nodded, but he paused. Walk out into this wasteland by himself? He didn’t have a horse, he didn’t have a pack…no food…no fuel…

  “I’ll take him,” a gruff voice said to one side.

  Both men turned.

  Urbeth sat seven or eight paces away.

  “Urbeth?” Axis said, almost unable to believe what he saw.

  She looked at the pile of ice melting in the sun. “It made such a noise crashing down, StarMan, that it woke my cubs. I decided to investigate.”

  “I apologise for the rude interruption, Urbeth. Can you take Arne? Show him the way?”

  She inclined her head. “I like Arne. He has a nice sense of humour. Come, Arne. I can take you as far as Talon Spike, and from there I think you can manage on your own.”

  Arne turned to Axis, opened his mouth, but found he could say nothing.

  Axis put his hand on his shoulder. “I thank you, Arne. Do not fear for me, for I shall see you again.”

  Arne nodded, and turned aside. He looked at the gigantic bear, now lumbering to her feet, and eyed her back.

  “You can walk!” she snapped, and turning around she ambled westwards.

  Without a backward glance Arne followed her, the Sceptre tucked safe under his cloak.

  73

  OF DECEPTIONS AND DISGUISES

  Axis watched them for a long time, watched the great pale shape with the smaller darker figure walk into the west, the low rumble of their voices reaching him for almost twenty minutes.

  Finally, when he was surrounded by nothing but silence and the light powdery snow that was kicked up by the wind, Axis took a deep breath. It was time to visit the Sacred Grove. Time to fulfil the promise he had made Faraday.

  Oh, gods, Faraday!

  Axis bent almost double as his grief over her hit him anew.

  Faraday!

  Again he saw Gorgrael, his face twisted with hate, slice open her belly, tear her throat apart. But worse than that was the pain and fear in her eyes, pain and fear that Axis could do nothing to allay.

  In order to win, he’d had to let her suffer…and she knew it. She’d known she was going to die, and Axis realised she’d known it for a very long time.

  “Had she come north with me to offer herself as a sacrifice that I might live?” he whispered.

  Had she loved him that much?

  He bent his head and wept anew.

  When he rose, drained of all emotion, the sun was sinking in the western horizon, and Axis realised he’d spent most of the day grieving for Faraday. Yet even most of one day was not enough. A lifetime would not do Faraday or her love or bravery justice.

  He turned, thinking to face east as he sang the Song of Movement, the song that could transfer him to the Sacred Grove, and paused…stopped…his heart constricting and then racing in his chest.

  Across the tundra, striding like vengeance himself, came a black figure. His cloak billowed out behind him like the wings of some great bird of prey, and the hood flapped and ballooned, and yet Axis could see none of the man’s features.

  But he could feel him smiling.

  “The Dark Man?” Gorgrael had asked, puzzled.

  Axis knew who this was.

  The figure drew closer, and Axis could hear him whistling, whistling some merry ditty, and could see his gloved fingers snapping away as if he were enjoying himself hugely.

  The sound of his whistling danced across the tundra towards Axis, and Axis’ emotions sparked from grief to rage in the space of a heartbeat.

  The Dark Man finally stopped some three paces away, his whistling fading although one booted toe still tapped merrily.

  “Well,” he said cheerfully, “all’s well that ends well, and it did end well, did it not, Axis?”

  Axis leapt for him. He had no weapons, and he knew that this Dark Man commanded Dark Music, dark power, but he leapt for him all the same. All he wanted was to feel his hands wrap themselves about the Enchanter’s throat.

  His leap was enough to drive the Dark Man to the ground, but his fingers found no purchase, and the Enchanter-Talon rolled out from underneath him. The next instant Axis found himself pinned to the ground, a black boot to his throat and blackness swirling above him.

  “You are Axis Rivkahson SunSoar,” the Dark Man said, his voice quiet now, “once BattleAxe, now StarMan, and God of Song, but do not think that you can outmanoeuvre me yet! You still have a long way to go, further yet to grow, and many more paths to travel, before you know what I know, and wield the same tricks I do.”

  Axis’ breath rattled harshly through his throat and he wrapped his hands about the Dark Man’s ankle, but he made no effort to try to push the boot away.

  “Very wise, Axis,” the Dark Man said. “You learn fast…but then you always were a quick learner, even as a child.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Me?” the Dark Man cried, the merry tone returning. “Me? Why, I am Dark Man, Dear Man, mentor to Gorgrael himself. Don’t you think I did a good job?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I found him, you know,” the Dark Man said, “when he was but a babe. And I held him and cuddled him. I was the only one, apart from those silly Skraelings, to show him any love. Of course, I betrayed him.”

  Who are you?

  “Who am I? In what guise did I come to you as a babe and then as a man? Well now, let me think.” And the Dark Man’s cloak twirled so Axis could see beneath its darkness.

  A handsome young man’s face laughed back at him, merry eyes and coppery curls.

  Axis frowned in puzzlement. “Who…?”

  “Ah!” The young man snapped his fingers in contrition. “Forgive me. Thus I appeared to Rivkah in her youth—a troubadour who sang her songs of such beauty about the mysterious Forbidden races that when StarDrifter alighted on Sigholt’s roof she accepted him instantly. I prepared the way, you see. Planned.”

  Who…

  The cloak twirled again, and now a middle-aged face haggard with toil and sadness stared down at Axis. Dark hair flopped untidily over features shadowed with a two-day growth of beard. He scratched irritably at his whiskers, and Axis saw his hands were knobbed and calloused with years of labour.

  “Don’t toy with me. I’ve never seen…”

  “Never seen me? Oh! Oh!” And he grinned. “Forgive me yet again, Axis. Thus I appeared to Azhure in her youth.”

  He bowed in mockery over Axis. “Alayne the blacksmith at your service, m’Lord. I kept Azhure occasional company through her suffering.”

  Axis’ face twisted with anger, and his hands clenched tighter about the boot at his throat, but before he could move or say anything, the Dark Man abruptly threw off his cloak, letting it flutter away in the wind.

  Mild blue eyes, thinning brown hair, a form riddled with age and arthritis.

  He roared with laughter as he saw the expression on Axis’ face. “The perfect disguise, BattleAxe! And the perfect spot for manipulation!”

  “Moryson!”

  “Aye, Moryson. I could have been Brother-Leader, but that would have been too obv
ious and far too dangerous—I could have been exposed there. But as First Assistant…ah, that was cunning itself. Poor Jayme. He thought it was he who had the ideas, who formulated the plans, but…but I was there all the time, whispering, planting ideas, suggesting courses of action. Advising.” He cackled gleefully.

  “Why, Axis, why do you think Jayme decided to visit Gorkenfort at the precise time that Searlas spirited Rivkah there to give birth?” Moryson leaned down and rested his hands on his knee above Axis. “And who suggested that, instead of drowning her bastard in a pail of water as Searlas wanted, we take him into the Seneschal instead? Who suggested you would be the ideal choice for BattleAxe?”

  “And you taught me as a baby?” Axis’ voice was dangerously quiet.

  “I rocked you and sang to you for years, Axis, and you lay there and listened. You were an easy baby to teach, as easy as you find Caelum now.”

  Axis’ body tensed under Moryson’s foot, and the man laughed. “And who, Axis, who suggested that you be sent to the battlefront at Gorkenfort via the circuitous route of the Silent Woman Keep and Smyrton?”

  “To find the Sentinels and Azhure?”

  “Oh,” Moryson whispered, “you always were the quick learner.”

  He stepped back quickly and, as Axis scrambled to his feet, he cast aside the disguise of Moryson and assumed a far older deception.

  Axis stopped, stunned by the transformation.

  Before him stood a beautiful Icarii birdman, clad in a shimmery silver suit that flashed blue over the curves of his body as he moved. Behind him stretched silver wings, and his face wore an expression of such utter knowledge and sadness that Axis’ breath caught in his throat.

  “So I appeared to the Sentinels,” he said, and Axis blinked at him in confusion.

  “As the Prophet,” he explained.

  “Why?” Axis whispered. “Why the Prophecy? What was the point of all this? Tell me before I go mad!”

  The Prophet’s form shimmered, and WolfStar assumed his true image. “Will you sit with me, Axis, and talk? The Sacred Grove will wait a while longer, and your promise to Faraday will not be compromised by the delay of yet another hour or so.”