The Ferryman was pleased by her smile and her gracefulness. The Charonites had always been niggled by Icarii arrogance. He lifted pale age-spotted hands and drew the material of the cloak back from his head and down over his shoulders. The Ferryman’s bald skull and cadaverous face bespoke great age, yet the resemblance to the Icarii shone through in the tilt of the eyes, the high cheekbones and the narrow nose. His eyes, however, belied his otherwise ancient appearance. They shone as lustrous and bright as those of a child, innocuous pools of violet in his desiccated face.
“You speak well, Rivkah,” the Ferryman said, “for a member of those people who have forgotten the joy of the mysteries.” Then, surprising all who watched, he turned and bowed deeply to Azhure, his hands covering his heart. “You are welcomed, Sacred Daughter and Mother of Nations,” he said in tones of deep reverence. “Find peace.” For long moments he stayed bowed in obeisance to Azhure. StarDrifter turned and gazed at her in amazement.
Startled, Azhure stared at the Ferryman. She recovered quickly however, noting how the Ferryman had responded to GoldFeather’s gracious words. “I stand with Rivkah in shame that I have not previously recognised your mysteries,” she said with a dignity her companions had not seen in her before. “Find peace, Ferryman.” Sacred Daughter? Mother of Nations? she thought. What did he mean?
I speak of a time both before and beyond the Prophecy, the Ferryman’s voice whispered in her mind as he raised himself from his bow, and Azhure only just managed to stop herself from rocking on her feet with surprise.
The Ferryman turned to StarDrifter. “Because of these two women who accompany you,” he said softly, “the Ferryman asks no price. Where do you wish to go?”
“Talon Spike,” said StarDrifter and then couldn’t resist asking, “what is your usual price?”
The Ferryman stood back and gestured for GoldFeather and Azhure to step into the boat first. His eyes flickered to StarDrifter. “The normal price is a life, Enchanter. The greatest mystery of all.” He paused and a merciless smile lit his face. “Who would you have picked to pay it?”
StarDrifter’s face paled. Who would he have picked?
They loaded quickly, the flat-bottomed boat easily holding them all in comfort. They sank down on thin cushions, the Ferryman seating GoldFeather and Azhure on either side of him in the stern of the boat. Neither woman could see any means of steering or propulsion, but as the Ferryman folded his hands serenely in his lap, the hood remaining draped over his shoulders, the boat moved smoothly forward.
For a long time there was silence. The Ferryman’s words regarding the price of passage had shocked them all, as did his obvious reverence for the two women, especially Azhure. Icarii pride was pricked. With them travelled one of their greatest Enchanters, someone towards whom the Ferryman should have been more respectful, and yet he seemed to prefer the two Groundwalker women. SpikeFeather’s curiosity about Azhure increased.
They travelled through tunnels whose roofs only cleared the Ferryman’s head by a handspan. Both walls and roofs were of the pale stone lining the walls of the wells, and light was given off by the emerald glow of the water. After a while Azhure shifted a little in her seat and said quietly, “May I speak with you, Ferryman?”
“Assuredly,” he smiled, inclining his head a little. “But if you ask me questions do not take offence if I decline to answer some of them. There are some mysteries we will not speak of.”
“I understand.” She was silent for a few moments. “Will you speak to me of these waterways?”
The Ferryman considered, then nodded his head. “Of some aspects, yes. The waterways are corridors between real places, physical places, but they are also corridors linking the mysteries of time and lives past and future. Worlds that have gone and worlds that will be. Worlds that have never been and worlds that might only be. In themselves they are both a mystery and an answer. The waterways are always a means to an end.”
Azhure frowned. At her feet, however, StarDrifter narrowed his eyes in thought.
“Are you the only ones who can travel them?” Azhure asked.
The Ferryman bit his lip. “No,” he said flatly, refusing to say any more on the matter.
“How does the boat move?”
“Of its own free will,” the Ferryman answered promptly. “And because I have given it purpose.”
“There seem to be stars in the water, Ferryman.” She deliberately did not phrase it as a question.
“The waterways mirror the paths of the Stars, Lady, and the Stars are mirrored in the waterways.”
StarDrifter smiled to himself. A mystery was beginning to clarify itself in his mind. He shifted in the boat, easing his aching wings. “And why the price of a life, Ferryman? Why such a high price to follow the path of the Stars?”
“You presume, Enchanter,” the Ferryman said testily. “I shall not answer that.” StarDrifter nodded, but he did not say any more.
GoldFeather glanced at her husband, then also addressed the Ferryman. “You know much of the Prophecy, Ferryman, and of what has passed. Yet you live among these subterranean waterways. Your ability to know is astounding and again I am humbled. Will you tell us something of the Charonites and of the life you lead along the waterways?”
“We travel the waterways, Lady,” he said briefly. “We seek to understand the Mysteries of the Universe.”
StarDrifter nodded to himself. The Seven Great Mysteries.
The Ferryman’s mouth twisted at the Enchanter’s incomprehension. The Icarii always thought they knew everything and their Enchanters were the worst of all. “The Mysteries are neither great nor small, Enchanter, nor easily counted. They are myriad. Lady,” he inclined his head slightly back towards GoldFeather, “I find it hard to talk to you of our lives, such as they are, along the waterways. Not because I do not wish to, but because I cannot find the words to explain to you. We are…different…to when we first began to explore the waterways so many millennia ago. Then we were close kin to the Icarii…now, I am not so sure. The waterways are strange, and they have led us places that we did not always want to go.”
Raum, sitting halfway back in the boat, spoke. “Ferryman, may you find peace.” The Ferryman bowed slightly at the Bane as Raum continued. “Have you mapped the waterways? Is there an easy way to find your way about them?”
The Ferryman considered. “Bane, you are welcome to my boat. It has been rare that we have one of your people visit. Map? Why do you ask? Is not the way of the waterways plain for all to see?” He sounded genuinely puzzled at Raum’s question and again StarDrifter nodded slightly to himself, but wary now to keep his thoughts well-guarded.
Now the Ferryman spoke first. “You have seen the Sentinels, Bane?”
“Yes, two. Jack and Yr. At the Mother.”
“Ah,” the Ferryman’s face broke into a wide smile.
“Yr is my daughter. She was well?”
“Yes, Ferryman.” Raum was genuinely astounded, as were most others who listened. “She looked well.”
“Good.” He paused, and an expression something like embarrassment crossed his face. “Lady,” he addressed GoldFeather, “I have perhaps been remiss in not asking a price for the Ferryman.” Her eyes widened, but the Ferryman continued. “Since it is now too late to negotiate a price, will you grant me a boon?”
GoldFeather’s face remained wary. “What is it?”
“Lady, I would ask that you acknowledge your identity as Rivkah, not GoldFeather. Rivkah is needed to walk the land of Tencendor and to aid your son, GoldFeather is not. This is a heavy price I ask from you, but I fear it is a necessary one.”
GoldFeather considered. When she had fled to the Icarii she had shed the name of Rivkah and adopted the name GoldFeather in an attempt to totally forget her former life and start anew with the Icarii. Rivkah? She had not thought of herself as Rivkah for thirty years. Rivkah was a young girl betrayed and murdered by the power games played in upper Acharite society. She looked at StarDrifter. He was consideri
ng her carefully, his face unreadable. She raised her eyebrows at him and he gave a slight shrug, as if to say it mattered not to him, it was her choice to name herself GoldFeather and it would be her choice to return to Rivkah. He had loved her as both.
Rivkah turned to the Ferryman. “I will grant you what you ask.” But Rivkah had not lived almost forty-eight years amid the intrigues of both upper-level Acharite and Icarii societies without learning to exact blood for blood. If the Ferryman believed this would cost Rivkah a high price then Rivkah also determined to exact a price from the Ferryman. “As I have freely given you this boon I ask one of you. Grant that if my son Axis should need your assistance, in whatever manner, you will help him. Do this for Rivkah.”
The Ferryman’s nostrils flared and he barked sharply in harsh laughter. “You have learned well, Rivkah. Blood for blood. And for blood, your boon is granted. Now, I will not talk any more. There is much to contemplate before we arrive at Talon Spike.”
The Ferryman fell silent and refused to answer another question.
55
THE ASSEMBLY OF THE ICARII
StarDrifter eased his aching muscles into the steaming water, holding his breath until his body had adjusted to the temperature, then relaxed and let himself float away from the side of the pool, his wings stretching down deep into the water and flexing slowly to keep him comfortably afloat. Over the past week most of his wounds had closed over, healing well, and only the deepest of the tears in his chest still kept him awake at night. Until this point in his life StarDrifter had always revelled in his youth and vibrant health, but the SkraeBold attack had brought him uncomfortably close to the death he had previously felt was so far away.
Death rarely entered the Icarii mind. They lived so long, and generally retained their health and mobility until the very end. Then, over a period of only a few weeks, they simply faded, as if some bright sun inside them had finally run out of combustible fuel. The dead were mourned briefly, intensely, and then the Icarii got back to living life to the fullest. Until the attack on Earth Tree Grove few Icarii had met violent deaths over the past thousand years, and none were left alive from the Wars of the Axes to remind the younger generations what it felt like to watch friends and family struck down in the prime of their life by cold steel.
But since the return to Talon Spike all Icarii had done a lot of soul searching. There had been many dead to mourn. Children, roostmates, and parents had died. Others had been terribly injured and would carry scars for the rest of their lives. They had watched each other being torn to pieces. And what had they done about it? Virtually nothing but give in to blind panic. The vaunted Icarii Strike Force had been made to look incompetent. The Icarii searched for explanations. Crest-Leaders shouted at Wing-Leaders, Wing-Leaders shouted at individuals within their Wing and Talon RavenCrest shouted at everybody. Councils were convened to discuss what could be done, argued futilely for hours, and were then disbanded with nothing decided. The Enchanters, StarDrifter among them, met, wept over the dead farewelled in the groves of the Avarinheim, and wondered what they could have done differently. StarDrifter, in an agony of guilt, had all but abased himself before his fellow Enchanters for not realising sooner that Earth Tree, if awoken, could help them. The other Enchanters had refused to let StarDrifter assume all the blame; in the end it had been his action, even when so terribly injured, that had helped save them. His and Azhure’s.
StarDrifter, now completely relaxed, opened his eyes and looked about the Chamber of Steaming Water. Great hot mineralised waters bubbled up through the deep fissures of Talon Spike and fed this pool in its huge Chamber in the depths of the mountain. The Icarii loved the waters, and usually came here several times a week to soak their cares, such as they were, away. StarDrifter looked for Azhure and EvenSong. They had come down to the Chamber with him—Azhure had first seen the hot water the day that they had arrived in Talon Spike and had come back every day since.
The Ferryman had not talked again after GoldFeather—Rivkah—had won his promise to assist Axis. StarDrifter smiled as his eyes searched for his daughter and Azhure among the Icarii disrobing at the steps leading down into the water. Rivkah had thought quickly, and StarDrifter doubted if any had won such a major concession from the Charonites for a thousand years. Eventually the silent Ferryman deposited them in a Chamber seemingly identical to the one that they had summoned him from, pointed to an identical stairwell leading upwards, and floated off again.
A spasm of remembered pain crossed StarDrifter’s face as he recalled the climb up those Star-damned stairs to the top. It had taken them almost half a day and by the end their legs felt as though they would fall off. The stairwell had opened out into a long disused tunnel that had, after further long hours of walking, led into one of the storage Chambers in the very deepest part of the Talon Spike complex. It had been another climb of several hours before they had met anyone to alert them to their presence. They’d arrived in Talon Spike only hours after the last waves of Icarii from Earth Tree Grove landed, and RavenCrest had been astounded by the rapidity of his brother’s journey and impatient to hear an explanation. But StarDrifter did not have to feign bone-deep weariness to wave him off and promise to discuss it another day. If he did. StarDrifter felt that it might be better to keep the details of the UnderWorld secret a little longer. Perhaps he might discuss them with FreeFall. The boy had a sharp mind and might see a shadow and a movement where for StarDrifter there was only brightness.
StarDrifter finally caught sight of EvenSong and Azhure as they left their robes and towels on a granite bench and stepped into the water. The two women, close in age, had become friends since their arrival in Talon Spike and, along with Raum, Azhure had moved into the apartments shared by Rivkah, StarDrifter and EvenSong. StarDrifter’s mouth curved appreciatively as Azhure lifted her arms to pin her hair on the crown of her head. She was a particularly striking woman, even more so than Rivkah at her age, and StarDrifter had always had an eye for beautiful and sensual women—and he had been even more interested in Azhure since the Ferryman’s deep show of respect for her. It was a pity about the ridged scars down her back. Perhaps the Healers among the Enchanters could do something for her. Azhure sank down as quickly as she could into the hot water and StarDrifter’s smile widened a little. She had not yet become used to the Icarii habit of shared bathing of males and females and was more comfortable fully submerged than exposed to watching eyes. He found the Acharite modesty appealing—and more than a little challenging. Why had the Ferryman been so reverential of Azhure? Was it simply her beauty? No, not that. The Ferryman did not look as though he was capable of bedding a limp sack of grain, let alone Azhure.
StarDrifter turned his head away and closed his eyes again. How could he think of love when it hurt simply to stretch his wings? As he succumbed to the relaxing waters his mind turned to Rivkah. He had wanted her the moment he saw her. He had been very young then, only a few years out of his service in the Strike Force and in the midst of the hectic advanced stages of his training as an Enchanter under the tutelage of his mother, MorningStar. He had learned so quickly and shown so much early ability that he had been chosen to lead the Beltide rites for the previous two or three years. StarDrifter remembered the Beltide he had coupled with the Avar woman, Ameld, and shifted a little uncomfortably in the water. After Beltide he had flown south rather than north, saying he wanted some time to himself. And then, one bright morning, riding a low air thermal over Sigholt, he had seen the young woman feeding her baby on the roof of the Keep.
StarDrifter smiled, remembering. He had always been impetuous and, not thinking of the danger, he had spiralled straight down to the roof of the Keep and seduced the woman within fifteen minutes, her abandoned baby squalling angrily to the sounds of their love-making. Day after day he had gone back, careless of the danger, so fascinated with the woman that he could not return to Talon Spike. He still remembered the day she had smiled and told him she was pregnant. Even then, as such a young Encha
nter, StarDrifter had known that the son Rivkah carried was extraordinary. When she had finally escaped her husband and told him that his son was dead StarDrifter had been stricken with grief.
StarDrifter had lavished love and attention on Rivkah, feeling deep guilt that she had suffered so much pain and loss while he had escaped Searlas’ wrath. He had never regretted taking her for his wife, his roostmate, even though so many of his people strongly objected to the match.
He’d loved her, hadn’t he? She was young and lovely and possessed a mind as lively and as inquisitive as his. But Rivkah had never settled well into Talon Spike. She tried, he tried, and the Icarii people as a whole generally tried, but it had been hard. After the birth of EvenSong when Rivkah had begun her habit of wandering for months at a time with the Avar, StarDrifter had been left to his own devices in Talon Spike with only his small daughter to remind him of his wife. For years he remained faithful to Rivkah, but over the past seven or eight years…well, ever a sensual creature, he had found some temptations too hard to deny himself, some seductions too hard to resist. Rivkah chose to leave him, did she not? And…StarDrifter twisted uncomfortably in the water as he confronted again the unpalatable truth that Rivkah was ageing before his eyes. He was still a young man, he had a young man’s desires, and while he still loved Rivkah, yes he did, and still found her desirable, certainly that, he sometimes caught himself looking at her and wondering what the future had in store for them. StarDrifter opened his eyes and drifted about the water, looking for Azhure again.
Like so many of the Icarii, he was a vain and selfish creature.
RavenCrest summoned the Assembly of the Icarii that afternoon and soon after the midday meal the Icarii filed into the central meeting Chamber of the Talon Spike complex. Talon Spike, the massive mountain that soared above all its brothers and sisters in the Icescarp Alps, had been the home of the Icarii people for the last thousand years, yet even before the Axe-Wielders had driven them out of the sunnier southern lands of Tencendor the Icarii had loved the place and had often summered there. Long dead volcanic activity had hollowed out winding and twisting mazes of passages and caverns in many of the mountains of the Alps, especially Talon Spike, and over the generations the Icarii had worked at these internal chambers to fashion out a home for themselves. Outside the air might be frigid, the climate inhospitable at best, but inside the great hot springs which fed the Chamber of Steaming Water kept the air that circulated within the mountain warm and comfortable. Perhaps the Icarii Enchanters were poor when it came to the art of war, but countless generations ago they had mastered the Songs needed to keep the interior of Talon Spike lit and the people fed and clothed. The Icarii, banned from their traditional homes further south, indulged their love of mysticism and magic, their love of the seduction, and their undoubted talent for interior decorating.