Sinner

  From the corner of his eyes, Zared noticed that Drago had leaned forward slightly, as if caught by the magic of WolfStar’s voice, or perhaps the vistas the Enchanter’s words had prompted in his mind.

  “And other worlds, WolfStar,” Caelum asked. “Did you find other worlds?”

  “They exist, Caelum. I experienced them – I cannot put it in any other way – but I did not physically visit them. But they are there, yes.”

  “Do they harbour races who might invade?” Zared ventured to ask, leaving the enigma of Drago for the moment.

  WolfStar blinked. “Races from other worlds? No, no, I think not. I did not sense any threat –”

  “Then what of the children you murdered?” Zenith said. Zared was surprised to hear that although her voice was soft, it was strong. “For surely it is they who whispered beyond the Star Gate. Will they come back?”

  Her question made WolfStar turn and stare at her for long minutes, as if he were trying to burn every angle, every plane of her face into his mind.

  “Yes,” he finally managed, “you are right. They are those I killed.”

  “Do they pose a danger to Tencendor?” Caelum asked.

  “No, they do not. They yearn for my blood, but I am here and they are lost beyond the Star Gate. As far as I am concerned, that is the way it will stay.”

  Isfrael shifted irritably. “Then why do we hear their voices now, and never before?”

  WolfStar shrugged, not willing to take his eyes from Zenith. “They drift, lost. It is not surprising that they would eventually drift slightly closer to the Star Gate than they had been previously.”

  “Should we help them come home?” FreeFall asked.

  His question was enough to make WolfStar drag his eyes away from Zenith. “No! No, we cannot do that!”

  “And why not, WolfStar?” FreeFall’s voice was very tight.

  WolfStar took a deep breath. “They have changed. Being thrown through the Star Gate as they were, alive, terrified, into a cosmos to drift for thousands of years, has altered them. They are not what they were. If they were to come through, then yes, I would fear. Please, believe me in this.”

  No-one in the room noticed Drago’s eyes narrow.

  “But you said there was no danger,” Caelum said.

  “As long as they remain beyond the Star Gate,” WolfStar replied testily. “And I can see no way they can step through.”

  “You could,” Caelum reminded him. “You came back.”

  “Yes, I came back, but I went through under very different circumstances,” WolfStar explained, unwilling to disclose what it was that had helped him back. It wouldn’t help the children, would it? “I was a powerful and fully trained Enchanter when I went through. I came back, but they will not. They do not have the skills, and they do not have the power. Believe me. They will never come back. In time the interstellar tides will carry them far away from the Star Gate. In a week or two their voices will be gone.”

  Caelum stared at WolfStar a moment longer, then he turned to SpikeFeather.

  “My friend, get you to the Star Gate and keep watch with Orr. If those voices come closer, if anything happens, then let me know.”

  SpikeFeather nodded, and slipped from the room.

  WolfStar raised his eyes above the gathered heads and looked at WingRidge CurlClaw.

  10

  Pastry Magics

  At some point, when people had grouped into ones and twos to discuss WolfStar’s words, the Enchanter himself had disappeared. Zenith, who’d made sure she kept a close eye on him, had no idea how he had done it. He’d been close to the fireplace, but she could have sworn he had not stepped back into it. Neither had he used any Song of Movement, because she would have felt it had he done so.

  He was there one heartbeat, gone the next.

  And Zenith had allowed herself to breathe a little more easily.

  Of the others, Drago had been the next to leave, his exit far more noticeable. He’d pushed bluntly past those in his way and stalked from the room, every eye following him.

  Zenith felt for Drago, and wished she’d had the courage Zared showed in leaping to his defence when RiverStar’s cruel tongue had been working its damage. Zenith had felt so ashamed that she’d later made the effort to join in the conversation, even asking WolfStar a question.

  He’d stared at her, but this time there had been nothing but the stare, nothing but the roiling and yet unreadable emotion in his eyes.

  Once Drago had gone, the rest of the group had been fairly quick to break up. There was much to be discussed and debated in the privacy of individual chambers, and even breakfasts to be had, for the initial shock of WolfStar’s appearance, and then his news, had long gone, and stomachs were now complaining.

  Most of the servants within Sigholt, as well as the heads of the Five and their advisers, were busy with preparations for Council, which was to commence the next morning, so Zenith spent most of the day with Leagh. She felt restless, and useless in the current hive of activity, and Leagh was always comfortable company. Zenith told Leagh all that had happened in Caelum’s chambers, for she thought the woman had as much right to know as Askam or Zared, and then she asked what had transpired between her and Zared the night previously.

  “Oh, Zenith! I saw more of him last night than I swear I have in the past four years. Thank you, thank you!”

  Leagh’s eyes had glimmered with emotion, and Zenith had to fight back the tears herself.

  Having passed the evening meal with Leagh, Zenith wandered back to her own chamber, but could not settle. Every time a drape moved in a draft, or a shadow flickered, Zenith jumped, thinking it was WolfStar.

  She was sure he would come after her –

  Why use that phraseology?

  – why, she could not tell. But something in his touch, something in his eyes…he wanted something from her. But what? Surely it was not lust, for what WolfStar had shown her was not the wantonness he’d displayed with RiverStar.

  But something else.

  Something…deeper.

  But that was ridiculous. She’d never met him, she was sure. WolfStar had disappeared long years before she’d even been born. Why should he spare her even a passing thought? She was nothing in the power games and mysteries currently being played out in Tencendor.

  The images – memories? – that had flooded Zenith’s mind when WolfStar touched her cheek now came back and assailed her again, though with less force this time. She’d seen the inside of the Dome of Stars – but that was the province only of the First Priestess of the Temple, and Zenith had never been there. She’d seen inside that peasant hut, seen the angry, nameless man advance on her, murder in his eyes – but neither had she seen hut nor man previously. And the child…the child. Who?

  Ah! Zenith shook herself. She would go mad left alone in this room to think!

  She wondered again about Drago, how he felt after enduring his own personal trauma that morning, and determined to find him.

  She found him, as she thought she would, in the kitchens.

  RiverStar goaded Drago about affairs with the kitchen girls, but Zenith knew the real reason Drago spent so much time in the kitchens of Sigholt.

  She’d discovered his secret one night seven years ago when she could not sleep and had thought to heat herself a glass of warm milk. She’d come in the kitchen doors, and then halted, astounded.

  Drago had been standing at one of the work tables, dicing a huge mound of vegetables.

  For some obscure reason, Drago loved to cook. He spent an hour or two down here most days, and longer if he was particularly upset over something. It was no mystery to Zenith that he would be here now.

  This late at night the fires were damped down, and the staff had long gone to bed. Even so, the air was still warm, and the great metal ranges against the far wall radiated a comforting glow.

  Drago was standing at a table before one of the ranges, several bowls before him, the tabletop strewn with flour and pieces o
f discarded meat.

  “Drago?”

  His head whipped up and a bowl rattled as he jumped. “What is it?”

  Zenith walked further into the room. “I thought you might like to talk about this morning.”

  Her brother dropped his eyes and kneaded some dough in a bowl, unspeaking.

  Zenith walked over to the range, keeping her wings carefully tucked away but rubbing her hands before its warmth. “What did you think about WolfStar?”

  Drago did not answer.

  Now Zenith hugged her arms to herself, her eyes unfocused. “He scares me, Drago. I did not like the way he looked at me. The way he touched me.”

  “I am sure there are some dozen or more people within Sigholt today who could say they do not like the way WolfStar looks at them.” He still had not raised his eyes from the bowl.

  Zenith studied Drago carefully. He was kneading dough as if he wanted to bruise it.

  “Drago…” She hesitated, but thought it needed to be discussed. “How did it make you feel to learn the name of WolfStar’s son?”

  Drago lifted the mass of dough out of the bowl and slammed it down on the table, sending flour drifting in a cloud about him. He lifted his eyes and stared at Zenith.

  “If he did not lie – and from the tales we’ve heard we know how WolfStar can lie – then all I can say is that DragonStar is a cursed name. Both of us condemned to our different deaths.”

  “Drago –”

  “Except that I think WolfStar’s son died far more gently than I!” He started to roll the dough back and forth, back and forth.

  “Drago –”

  “I do not want to talk about it!” He chopped the dough in two with the side of his hand, played at shaping one of the pieces into a pie crust, then suddenly threw it into a corner of the kitchen with all the strength he could.

  “I do not want to talk about it!”

  “Damn you, Drago! You must talk sometime!”

  Drago rounded on her. “Look at you, Zenith! You are beautiful, vital, and you revel in your Enchanter powers. You have an aeon to live. Look at me!”

  His fingers pinched at his body, then his face. “Look at me! I am wrinkling and ageing. I get out of breath climbing the stairs to the roof. All the magic I can perform is getting this…this…this arse-blasted lump of pastry to rise in the oven! And all I ever hear about this cursed Keep is how vile I am, how much air is wasted on my breath, and how I can never be trusted or loved or relied upon!”

  Unable to bear her brother’s pain, Zenith lowered her eyes and toyed with the handle of a pot on the range hotplate. She could not blame Drago for feeling angry or resentful. No-one in their family seemed willing to harbour a single positive thought for the man or to consider that perhaps he had been punished enough. No-one seemed to entertain the idea that Drago might be so consumed by bitterness that his very punishment might drive him to ill-considered action.

  And no-one save she had ever seemed to think through the implications of what Azhure had done to him. Icarii babies were very different from human babies in that they were completely aware from the moment of their birth and, indeed, many months before it. All Icarii memories stretched back to events pre-birth. But when Drago was only a few months old, Azhure had stripped him of his Icarii heritage, and had plunged his mind into the dim murkiness of human infancy. Drago’s memories could not date from anything earlier than his second or third year of life.

  Drago would have no memory of the events that had seen him so cruelly punished. He was largely reviled, mistrusted, unloved and, above all, condemned to a life of only some three or four score of years, when he could have expected hundreds at least, for a crime he could not remember!

  No-one cared about how Drago might be feeling or what kind of man lay buried beneath all the years of built-up bitterness. Zenith alone of the immediate family rather liked Drago; perhaps because she’d not yet been conceived when he had arranged Caelum’s kidnapping. Drago had a sharp wit and was, in odd, unexpected moments, kind and thoughtful.

  He is trapped here in Sigholt, Zenith realised suddenly. Trapped by other people’s memories of what he did as a child.

  As I am trapped by another’s memories.

  Zenith went ice cold. Was that what it was? Why she had such unexplained memories invading her mind? Were they someone else’s? But whose?

  “Perhaps we should both leave Sigholt for a while,” she said softly.

  “What?” Drago had given up his efforts at cooking and was piling bowls into the sink with loud, angry rattles.

  “Drago, how long is it since you left Sigholt?” Zenith moved forward but stopped as Drago’s face tightened. “I don’t think you’ve left in at least eight years. Drago…why?”

  He stared at her, not answering.

  “There is nothing keeping either of us here…why don’t we visit StarDrifter? Escape the tensions in this Keep?”

  “Why should you want to leave?”

  Why indeed? Zenith almost said, “Because of WolfStar”, but stopped, knowing she couldn’t explain to Drago, let alone herself, her deep-seated fright of the Enchanter, her unsettling visions, or her recurring gaps in consciousness.

  “Because there is a world of purpose out there,” she said eventually, “and because neither of us has a purpose in here.”

  “If I have no purpose it is because my life has been made deliberately purposeless! I am not trusted enough to be given the responsibility of a purpose.”

  “Then why not leave, Drago? StarDrifter would enjoy seeing both of us.”

  He looked at her, his violet eyes soft, almost gentle in this light, and she knew he was remembering the image of StarDrifter she had conjured up, and the happy months they had spent on the Island of Mist and Memory as children.

  “I have no purpose anywhere,” he finally said, his voice weary with resignation. “Wherever I go I will always be the vile traitor.”

  “You can remake your life if you leave Sigholt. Please, Drago.”

  He seized her shoulders, and Zenith was astounded to see tears in his eyes. “I can never escape, Zenith! Never! Word would spread that Axis’ untrustworthy and evil son Drago is travelling the land. Doors everywhere would be closed to me. I have no life here in Sigholt, but I would have no life anywhere. Now, will you leave me alone?”

  And he strode from the kitchen.

  11

  Niah’s Legacy

  Even more troubled now, Zenith climbed to the rooftop of Sigholt. She stood and watched the lights shut out one by one in the town of Lakesview on the other side of the lake. She let the warm breeze caress her, and briefly contemplated a flight over the lake and hills. But she was tired, her mind full of problems, and she preferred just to lean over the wall of the roof and let the view soothe her.

  Determined not to think of WolfStar, or Zared and Leagh’s troubles, or even of Drago, Zenith fixed her thoughts on RiverStar’s claim to have found a new lover. And one she might wed? Zenith almost laughed aloud. Maybe her lover considered marrying RiverStar, but Zenith doubted seriously that her sister would ever go that far. She enjoyed her freedoms too much to discard them for fidelity.

  Unless…unless her lover were SunSoar. A SunSoar might well tempt RiverStar, but who was available to her here in Sigholt if not first blood?

  Zenith frowned. FreeFall…but FreeFall was impossible. He and his wife EvenSong were virtually inseparable, and EvenSong was here with him. Besides, who could ever think of FreeFall and RiverStar…no, that was laughable. Surely.

  And WolfStar. WolfStar was here – how much longer had he been about before he made his presence known? His penchant for disguises was legendary. If he was RiverStar’s new lover, had he been coming to her in the guise of a stableboy, or himself?

  No, no, not WolfStar. Zenith did not want to think of him at all.

  Although remember the way he’d kissed RiverStar this morning; was that boldness, or familiarity?

  Isfrael! Zenith forced her mind as far from WolfSta
r as she could. Was Isfrael first blood? She supposed he was, for he and RiverStar shared a SunSoar father. But then Isfrael had changed so much since he’d become Mage-King of the Avar that it was as if his SunSoar link was gone.

  Although he still had the blood to satisfy RiverStar, if indeed it were him.

  No, surely not Isfrael. He had only been here since this morning…hadn’t he? When had Isfrael arrived?

  “Oh, for the sweet Stars’ sakes,” Zenith murmured. “RiverStar is probably just making it all up, anyway.”

  She looked down to the far courtyard, her Enchanter vision having no trouble picking out every detail in the thick night shadow. A guard moved from barrack to gate, another checked the doors to the weapons room off the main building.

  A movement. Drago. Zenith sharpened her vision, then smiled gently, her eyes soft. He was feeding scraps of meat to the courtyard cats. Five or six had gathered, mewling about his legs, reaching up to pat his knees with their paws. He laughed, and squatted down to scratch them, their heads butting against his arms and chest affectionately.

  Zenith had never realised he liked cats so much – nor that they so obviously adored him. All the food was gone, but still they stayed, winding about him. Her face softened yet more. Someone besides herself in this great Keep liked the man.

  Drago stood up, extracted himself from the cats, and stepped back inside.

  Zenith watched for a few more minutes, but he did not reappear. She sighed, and moved to the parapets that overlooked the lake, resting her elbows on the wall, her chin in her hands, lost in thought.

  Sigholt was now completely quiet. The dogs were curled in sleep, the guards seemed to have turned to stone at their posts.

  Silence and stillness reigned.

  Zenith felt as if she had been transported to another world. Even the breeze had disappeared.

  Her wings relaxed and drifted over the flagstones behind her. She sank into a greater lethargy, leaning her full weight on the wall, watching the waves ripple across the moonlit Lake of Life.

  Zenith did not notice the tiniest of movements in the air about her, nor catch the enchantment that rippled over the rooftop.