Five paces away, hidden under the gloom of a purple-berry bush, Sicarius lay with his head on his forepaws, watching them. The hound’s loyalty and love had been with Azhure for so very long that he now found it difficult to contemplate leaving her.
But he knew he would have to.
He had other loyalties, and other loves, far older than those he gave Azhure.
There was a movement behind him. His mate, a bitch called FortHeart. She nuzzled at his shoulder, and Sicarius shifted a little to give her room.
She too studied Axis and Azhure, then as one the pair shifted their heads to look south.
Caelum lay for a long time, listening to the sounds of the night forest, listening to the faint whispers of his parents, thinking.
He was glad that they were finally moving, finally doing something. He hoped his parents’ faith that Star Finger held the key was justified…for if it wasn’t, then there was no hope at all.
No, no, he couldn’t think that way. He had to keep hope alive…somehow. Star Finger did hold the key, and it would give him what he needed to free the land from the horror that enveloped it.
And then no-one, not even the ever-cursed Drago, could whisper behind his back that he didn’t have the strength or courage or resourcefulness of his father. No-one could ever say that he didn’t deserve to sit the Throne of Stars in his own right.
Drago. Caelum felt a coldness seep over him as he thought of his younger brother.
When I came back through the Star Gate all enchantments fell from my eyes.
Curse him! Curse him! Curse him! If Drago’s eyes were clear, then Caelum had no doubt that his brother was currently planning to scatter Caelum’s blood over all of Tencendor.
How could it be otherwise?
All this pretence of contrition was a foil for Drago’s deadly revenge and never-ending ambition.
“Stars help me,” Caelum whispered, “if Star Finger holds nothing but useless hope.”
He dreamed.
He dreamed he was hunting through the forest. A great summer hunt, the entire court with him. His parents, laughing on their horses. His brother, Isfrael, and his sisters, even RiverStar. It was a glorious day, and they rode on the wind and on their power, and all the cares of the world and of Tencendor seemed very, very far away.
But then the dream shifted. They still hunted, but Caelum could no longer see his parents or his brother and sisters. The hounds ran, but he could no longer see them either. The forest gathered about him, threatening now.
And now even his horse had disappeared. He was running through the forest on foot, his breath tight in his chest, fear pounding through his veins.
Behind him something coursed. Hounds, but not hounds. They whispered his name. Oh, Stars! There were hundreds of them! And they hunted him.
They whispered his name. StarSon! StarSon!
Caelum sobbed in fear. What was this forest? It was nothing that he had ever seen in Tencendor. He cut himself on twigs and shrubs, fell, and scrambled panicked to his feet.
Something behind him…something…something deadly.
Running.
He heard feet pounding closer, he heard horns, and glad cries. They had cornered him.
Caelum fell to the forest floor and cowered as deeply into the dirt and leaf litter as he could.
But he couldn’t resist one glimpse—even knowing what he would see.
DragonStar was there, wielding his sword, riding his great black horse. But now he was different.
He still wore his enveloping amour—but it was black no longer. Now it ran with blood, great clots that slithered down from helmet, over shoulders, hanging dripping from arms and legs.
Heat radiated out from him.
DragonStar’s voice whispered through his head. And so shall you run with blood, Caelum.
Caelum opened his mouth to scream, then halted, transfixed. Behind DragonStar’s horse stood a woman.
Dark-haired. Beautiful.
And on her face a predatory smile of unbelievable malignancy.
“Zenith?” Caelum whispered, and then said no more, for DragonStar’s sword sliced down through his chest, twisting and slicing, and, as promised, thick, clotted blood swamped Caelum’s throat and mouth, and flowed out over his chin and chest to drown the land.
12
The Hawkchilds
Find for us and, finding, set those who run to our song against them.
So Sheol had commanded, and so the Hawkchilds had done. In truth, they already knew much of what the Demons needed to know. Since their return through the Star Gate the Hawkchilds had flown virtually the length and breadth of their ancient homeland, watching, seeing, noting.
Where the armies that think to trample us underfoot?
There, in the north of the Silent Woman Woods. Many of them. Tens of thousands. Crouched about small campfires, waiting for who knew what.
Where the magicians of this world?
Those that are left crouch within the forests. That so few were left made the Hawkchilds whisper their glee to the darkened skies.
They were those of the earth and the trees, and while they retained some powers now, the Hawkchilds knew they would eventually lose it. When Qeteb walked again beneath the heat of the midday sun. When the trees were blackened stumps smouldering under his fury.
These magicians, these Avar, were impotent now and would shortly be completely useless. The best they’d had, Isfrael and the Bane Shra, had thrown themselves against the Demons, and had lost.
And so the Hawkchilds paid them no heed. They would pose little, if any, danger. They soared through the dawning sky, whispering joyful melodies. There was no magic left in this land that could touch the Demons.
None.
Where this StarSon who thinks to rule the Throne of Stars?
Harder. He was here, somewhere, in the forests, but the Hawkchilds could not spot him.
Their joy faltered, and they hissed.
Where this StarSon? His name is Caelum. Caelum SunSoar.
As one mind they soared and dipped, thinking. Eventually, as mutual decision was reached, twenty-seven of the Hawkchilds veered away from the main flock and flew east. Over Minstrelsea. Hunting. Tracking.
The main body flew westwards, seeking to carry out Sheol’s command. Find for us and, finding, set those who run to our song against them.
Easy.
They whispered their joy, and then broke apart, the Hawkchilds scattering over the entire land.
In the very south-western corner of the Skarabost plains, an old white horse stood in the rosy light of the dawn, hunger raging unnoticed about him.
He slept, dreaming of glory days past.
Sheltering on the ground under the shade provided by his belly, the ancient speckled blue eagle sat fluffing out his feathers in utter indignation that he’d been driven to find such shelter from the Demonic Hour.
But this was all there was, and somehow the eagle felt a kinship with this senile old nag.
Overhead there was a rustling, and a whispering.
The eagle started, terrified, knowing that what hunted was worse than the most crazed Gryphon.
But the Hawkchilds swept over, not minding the horse or the bird he sheltered. As if they had not seen either of them.
Little did either horse or eagle know it, but apart from the fey creatures of Minstrelsea, they were among the very few sane creatures left alive in the plains of Tencendor.
Five times during the day and night, the Demons sent forth the grey miasma, carrying their horror throughout Tencendor. The peoples of the land came to know that if they stayed indoors during those times and tightly shuttered doors and windows, then they could not be touched.
It was a dismal existence, but it was an existence.
Tencendor’s fauna were not so fortunate.
Apart from the creatures of the forests, or those livestock who were continuously sheltered within barns or even homes, most of the creatures of Tencendor had been touched at one
time or another over the past few days by the Demons.
Touched, and changed. Birds, badgers, cattle, pigs, snakes and frogs. All changed.
All now running to the song of the Demons.
The Hawkchilds hunted them down. Most of the creatures were roaming uselessly through grain land or the plains. And over the next few days all were visited by one or two of the Hawkchilds.
Whispering instructions.
An army in the northern Silent Woman Woods.
Destroy.
A myriad thousand people sheltering in Carlon.
Destroy.
Scores of hamlets and isolated farmhouses, still sheltering those who refuse to heed the sweet song of madness.
Destroy!
And when you roam, you will find the two-legs who, like you, have been touched. Absorb them into your flocks and herds. Use them.
The brown and cream badger led forth his slaughterhouse band at the behest of the Hawkchilds. He was tired of the years spent huddled in his burrow hiding from the horsed hunters after his fur.
Now was his time.
The Hawkchilds flew west and found a further friend huddled in a pool of weak sunshine outside the walls of Carlon.
A patchy-bald grey rat, sick of a lifetime of torture at the hands of the small male two-legs who ran the streets of the city.
In the city, tens of thousands of people crowded inside tenements, hiding from the Demons.
The Hawkchilds whispered in the rat’s mind, and it turned its head back to the walls rising above it and bared its yellowed teeth in what passed for a grin.
Now was its time.
13
The Waiting Stars
Drago hesitated at the edge of the crystal forest, and then stepped onto its slippery floor. He paused and, as StarLaughter had done, rested a hand on the trunk of the nearest tree.
It was warm, and solid, and somehow comforting. Drago dropped his hand and straightened, his eyes surveying the forest before him. He took a deep breath, then stepped forward, following the flash of blue feathers between the trees below him.
Like the Demons, he walked for hours, marvelling that the forest extended so far. Always the feathered lizard scrabbled, and sometimes slid, two or three trees in front of him, leading him downwards.
In time the creature stood before a blackened crust that lay on the forest floor in a small glade. Drago stopped, and looked about him. He could feel the faint resonance of Demons in this place. What had they done here? He looked down at the crust. The feathered lizard was snuffling about its edges, reaching out one claw to scrape hesitantly at the stuff. His talons came away encrusted in flaky red filth, and the lizard backed off, hissing.
“What is it, my friend?” Drago said, squatting by the lizard and stroking its feathers. “What is this…”
He dropped his hand to the crusty stuff, and made a sound of disgust as his fingers touched it. Dried blood! Drago screwed up his face and stood, rubbing his fingers free of the crumbling flakes.
His fingers stilled, and he bent down again, scraped up a handful of the blood and dropped it into his sack.
His other hand momentarily tightened about the rosewood staff, and without thinking, Drago lifted the staff forward and scraped away a part of the blood.
He fell motionless, and looked awhile, and the lizard raised its eyes and studied Drago curiously.
“I think,” Drago said tonelessly, “that we have reached our destination.”
Underneath the dried blood was a trapdoor.
Grimacing, Drago bent down and swept away as much of the blood as he could. Then he lifted the door, revealing a well of steps circling down into darkness.
Much as, had Drago but known it, steps had once led from each of the Ancient Barrows into the Chamber of the Star Gate.
“Well,” Drago began, speaking to the lizard, but he got no further, for the lizard had leapt into the stairwell and was already slithering and sliding his way down.
Drago smiled, and stepped after him.
He did not walk very far down the narrow, twisting staircase before it opened into a corridor that stretched some fifty paces, ending in a circular door. The lizard was snuffling about its hinges.
Drago stepped onto the smooth, grey metallic floor of the corridor, and paused to study it. The floor was slightly levelled out, but only about the width of an arm, otherwise the passageway was completely circular, rising to a point about half an arm’s length above his head. The roof of the corridor was lit by gently-glowing circles, each a pace apart down its entire length. The walls were cool to the touch, but vibrated very gently.
As if they were alive.
A line of inscriptions ran at shoulder height down the walls. Drago stared at them, then lifted his staff and compared the inscriptions set there with those on the wall. They were the same, the strange black circles with feathered handles rising from their backs, running in a dancing, weaving line.
“These ancients,” Drago said to the lizard, “had a strange script indeed.”
Then he walked down to the door and inspected it.
There was no handle, although one side had hinges. Obviously it opened. But how?
Drago pushed, but with no success. He frowned, his fingers tapping gently against the door. On the wall by the door was a recessed rectangular section, filled with nine slightly raised knobs of the same cool, grey material as door and corridor.
Drago stared at them, then slowly raised his hand and rested his fingers on the raised knobs.
Instantly his mind flooded with an extraordinary vision.
Two old men, one short and squat, the other tall and thin, had marched down this very corridor once.
Drago’s frown deepened. Who? One of the men turned and spoke to his companion, and Drago recognised the voice instantly. They were the Sentinels, Ogden and Veremund, and this was the doorway by which they had accessed the Repository.
He watched as the vision unwound itself.
The Sentinels walked to the spot he now stood, and the tall one, Veremund, lifted his hand and placed it as Drago now had his placed.
Then he had hummed a fragment of melody, and his fingers had danced accordingly.
The memory faded, although the short melody lingered; it was a part of the same tune the Sentinels had taught him before he’d been dragged back through the Star Gate.
Drago stood, almost as if in a trance, replaying the vision over and over. Then, in a flash of inspiration, Drago realised that Veremund had transferred the melody into a pattern, and had then transferred the pattern onto the raised knobs.
Drago ran the tune through his head, translating it from melody to pattern almost without thought. He transferred the pattern onto the rows of knobs with his fingers.
Instantly the door swung inwards with a soft hiss.
The lizard gave a soft cry and scampered through.
But Drago stood still, his head bowed, thinking. Something very, very important had just happened, and he struggled to understand it. He…he…
“Damn it!” Drago whispered. “What did I just do?”
He had used the pattern of melody to accomplish a purpose.
Is that not what Icarii Enchanters did?
And yet there was no Star Dance, no power, no magic. No enchantment left.
Drago shuddered, and the grip of his left hand tightened about his staff. He had not only opened a door, he had also just been taught something.
Ah! Frustrated, feeling that the answer danced just beyond the reaches of his mind, Drago put the problem to one side and stepped through the door.
It swung shut behind him.
Drago paid it no heed. Before him stretched yet another corridor, similar to the last with the pattern of feathered circles on the walls, but curving into a left-hand bend some twenty paces ahead.
Beyond the bend the corridor branched into two. Drago took the left-hand fork without hesitation and then, when it again branched, took the right-hand fork. It led into a flight of steep
steps leading to a higher level, and Drago grinned as he imagined how the two Sentinels would have grumbled about climbing them. Somehow, their presence was still very much here.
There was a large rectangular room at the top of the steps. The walls were literally smothered with the feather-backed circles. Metallic racks stood in three ranks, almost empty, save for half a dozen glass jars.
They were empty.
Drago looked about. There were three doors, rectangular now, in the far wall, each of them open. Which one?
From the door on the far right came the faint hum of vast power, but Drago understood he should not take that one.
He walked through the middle doorway instead. Before him stretched yet another corridor, but very short, and ending in yet another doorway through which…through which Drago thought he could see stars.
Stars?
Hesitant now, Drago walked down the corridor to the door, took a deep breath, and stepped through.
He stood in a strange room. The walls, ceiling, benches and even parts of the floor were covered with metal plates, and these plates were studded with knobs and bright jewel-like lights. Before him were the high backs of several chairs, facing enormous windows that looked out upon the universe.
One of the chairs before him swivelled, revealing a silverhaired man in its depths. He wore a uniform made of a leathery black material; gold braid hung at his shoulders and encircled the cuffs of his sleeves, and in his first glance Drago saw a black, peaked cap, gold braid about its brim, sitting on the bench behind him.
But it was the man’s face underneath his silvery hair which riveted Drago’s attention.
It was lined with care…and more. Agonising pain had scored a network of deep lines into the man’s skin. His right hand clenched spasmodically in the tunic over his chest, and he breathed erratically, great deep breaths that tore through his throat.
A slight movement distracted Drago’s attention momentarily. The blue-feathered lizard sat to one side under an empty chair, his black eyes unblinking on the man in the chair.
“Drago,” said the man, and Drago looked back to him.