Enchanter (74 page)

Time passed, and its passage was marked only by the ringing of steel through the Chamber of the Moons.

Dreadfully, inexorably, caught by fate, Axis and Borneheld fought as the vision of the Silent Woman Woods had foretold and Faraday's face crumpled in despair. Although she strained against Jorge's arms to be free, reaching into the centre of the Chamber, he was too strong for her. She wept, terrified by what she saw unfolding before her. In the centre of the Chamber the two men circled, each bloodied with small stinging wounds, swords drawn, faces twisted into snarling masks of rage fed by long-held hatreds. How long had they been fighting? How many blows had they traded? How many times had one slipped, the other lunging for the kill, only for the other to roll aside just in time to escape the sword thrust? Faraday did not realise that she whispered Axis' name over and over as she continued to struggle feebly against Jorge's arm. Her slim fingers twisted the Ichtar ruby around the knuckle of her heart finger until the skin broke and bled.

Apart from Faraday's movements and whispers, there was no other movement or sound in the Chamber of the Moons save those of the men fighting. Magariz stood behind Rivkah, his hands on her shoulders, lending her support as she witnessed the death struggle between her two sons. No matter how much Rivkah had disowned Borneheld, no matter how much she claimed to despise him, Magariz knew that she would not be able to watch his death without pain.

Rivkah's attention was caught by the scene in front of her. Both her sons had grown to be skilful warriors. Borneheld fought with muscles and tactics honed by battle, Axis with the grace and fluidity bequeathed him by his Icarii father. Borneheld s size and the gold circlet about his brow lent him authority, Axis' white and scarlet-clad form imbued him with an almost ethereal beauty.

StarDrifter realised that the sound of the swords clashing and scraping along each other, the sounds of the men's heavy breathing and of their boots scuffing across the green marble floor, made a music unlike any he had ever heard before. It was a strange music, dark and foreboding, and StarDrifter's eyes widened as he realised he was listening to an echo of the Dance of Death, of the Dark Music of the Stars. Had this duel been choreographed by WolfStar? Was he here, watching? StarDrifter's eyes ran anxiously about the Chamber, but could see nothing beyond the dim figures of those who encircled the Chamber. Did WolfStar watch with the eyes of that courtier? Or perhaps the stableboy beyond?

StarDrifter returned his eyes to Borneheld and Axis. That they fought to the sounds of the Dark Music worried him more than anything else - why was the Prophecy using Dark Music to work its will? Was there no place for the Star Dance tonight?

Time passed, and its passage was marked only by the ringing of steel and the scuff of the combatants' boots on the marble floor. Unknowingly, StarDrifter had begun to sway from side
to side rhythmically, to sway from side to side with the beat of the Dance of Death.

Both Axis and Borneheld weaved with weariness now, and both began to slip every third or fourth step. Their breath was laboured, their faces and torsos wet with perspiration, while their arms looked as though they had invisible lead weights attached to them. Both men had sustained wounds, but Axis was bleeding a little more heavily than Borneheld. Borneheld was dressed in a thick leather jerkin and trousers, and the leather protected his skin more than Axis'

thin linen shirt protected his.

At no point did either man drop his eyes from those of his opponent. They had waited all their lives for this, and every stroke, every thrust, was powered by long yean of resentment and hate.

Everything that Faraday saw was shadowed by the vision the trees had shown her. It was as if there were four men out there; every time Axis raised his sword a ghost-like figure beside him raised his, every time Borneheld lunged so a ghost-like figure lunged with him.

Time passed, and the music danced on.

Axis staggered with weariness. How long had he been fighting? Borneheld allowed him no quarter, no time in which to catch his breath, no time in which to position himself to drive home a series of blows and thrusts that might serve to push Borneheld to his knees. His brother seemed to have the strength of a bull, fighting without pause, his eyes gleaming with madness.

In the end it was the eagle who proved Borneheld's undoing. Throughout the fight the bird had clung to its high ledge, bored yet distracted by the fighting going on so far below it.

Finally it began to preen itself, twisting its head to and fro among its feathers as it sought to clean itself of some imagined stain.

It tore a small downy feather from among its chest feathers and spat it out, irritated, then turned back to comb the flight feathers of its left wing.

The white feather slowly floated, this way and that, now rising, now falling, now wafting this way, now that. But always it drifted lower and lower until it began to jerk and sway as it was caught by the laboured breathing of the combatants just beneath it.

It almost lodged in Axis' hair, and Axis flicked his head, irritated by the feathery touch along his forehead, distracted enough that he only just managed to parry a blow close to his chest.

The feather, dislodged from Axis' hair, spiralled upwards a handspan or two, then, caught in a down draught, sank towards the floor. Borneheld had not noticed it, and Axis had forgotten it, as the brothers began a particularly bitter exchange, fighting so close now that they traded blows virtually on the hilts of their swords, taking the strain on their wrists, both their faces reddened and damp from effort and weariness and determination and hate.

The feather settled on the marble floor.

Axis suddenly lunged forward. Momentarily surprised, and caught slightly offguard, Borneheld took a single step backwards and...lost his balance as his boot heel slipped on the feather.

It was all Axis needed. As Borneheld swayed, a look of almost comical surprise on his face, Axis hooked his own foot about the inside of Borneheld's knee and pulled his leg out from under him.

Borneheld crashed to the floor, the sword slipping from his grasp, and Axis kicked it across the Chamber. Fear twisting his face, Borneheld scrabbled backwards, seeking space in which to rise. He risked a glance behind him - not two paces away Faraday stood held in Jorge's tight grasp, a look of utter horror on her face. Borneheld stared briefly at his wife, knowing it was all over, knowing he had lost, then he turned his face back towards Axis, wanting to see the blow that would kill him.

All Faraday could see was what the vision let her. Real figures were obscured by the ghostly, and Faraday was certain, certain, that it was Axis who had tripped, exhausted, and now lay waiting for death at her feet.

Axis placed his booted foot squarely in the centre of Borneheld's chest, raising his sword, but instead of bringing the blade down to sever the arteries of Borneheld's neck he twisted the sword in his hand and struck Borneheld a stunning blow to his skull with its haft, leaving the man writhing weakly, semiconscious. Then Axis threw the sword away.

Every eye in the Chamber watched, bewildered, as Axis' sword spun across the floor of the Chamber. What was he doing? Why did he not finish Borneheld with a quick, clean blow?

Axis sank to his knees, straddling Borneheld, and drew a knife from his boot.

Then he tore open Borneheld's leather jerkin, pushing the flaps to one side, and slid the knife deep and long into the man's chest.

He used both hands wrapped about the haft of the knife to get enough leverage to split Borneheld's sternum in two and crack open his rib cage, grunting with the effort.

The sound of bone splitting open was horrifying. Rivkah, directly across the Chamber, doubled over and gagged at the sound, and Magariz seized her in his arms and held her tight against his chest.

Borneheld's eyes rolled back in his head, and his hands clenched by his sides. His entire body spasmed as Axis threw the knife to one side and took hold of Borneheld's exposed rib cage with both hands and tore it apart.

Under the pressure of Axis' fingers, Borneheld's aorta split asunder. A massive gout of his blood arced out of his chest and splattered across Faraday's neck and chest, running down between her breasts in warm rivulets. Driven to madness by the feel of the warm blood trickling down her body, Faraday screamed and screamed, twisting in Jorge's arms.

But no matter how much she writhed, Faraday could not escape Borneheld's dying stare. Or was it Axis' eyes she saw? Faraday still could not distinguish the real figures from the ghostly. Who was dying at her feet? Whose eyes stared into hers in mute appeal? Was it Axis? Oh Mother, pray that it was not Axis who lay on the floor dying!

His arms bloodied to the elbow, his entire shirt-front warm with his brother's heart blood, Axis reached into Borneheld's open chest cavity and seized his brother's frantically beating heart with his bare hands. Then he tore it out, spraying blood over all those within the immediate vicinity.

"FreeFall\" he screamed, leaning back from Borneheld's body and staring into the dome of the Chamber. "FreeFa//!"

The eagle launched itself from its ledge, its shriek mingling with Axis'

scream, and plummeted for the floor of the Chamber.

As the eagle dived. Axis threw Borneheld's still uselessly beating heart as high as he could, black blood spattering in great drops in his golden hair and across the floor of the Chamber. As the heart reached the peak of its arc, the eagle seized it in its talons and crashed to the floor in a tangle of wings, talons and beak, feeding frenziedly on the sweet meat offered it.

Everyone was so horrified by the sight of the eagle tearing Borneheld's heart apart in the centre of the Chamber floor that they were literally incapable of movement. Even Rivkah, held close against Magariz's chest, was mesmerised by the sight of the snow eagle feeding on her eldest son's heart.

Axis leapt to his feet, slipping slightly in the pool of blood about Borneheld's body.

Faraday stared at him, appalled. He was covered in blood - it dripped from his body, it hung in congealing strings through his hair and beard. He reached out a hand ...

... and seized Faraday. Jorge let her go, sickened by the sight of the gore that dripped from both Faraday and Axis. Faraday twisted feebly as Axis seized her left wrist, frightened by the look in his eyes, gasping in pain as his warm and slippery fingers closed so tightly about the delicate bones of her wrist that they began to grind against each other.

Borneheld's blood trickled yet further between her breasts, and she gagged.

Everywhere, the blood. She could feel it, smell it, taste it.

Axis wrenched the Ichtar ruby from her heart finger and half turned back to Borneheld's body. He still kept Faraday caught in his vice-like grip.

"/ have fulfilled my part of the bargain, GateKeeperl" he screamed,

"Nowfulfil yoursl"

He tossed the Ichtar ruby into Borneheld's chest cavity where it glinted momentarily before sinking beneath the pool of coagulating blood where Borneheld's heart had once been.

TransformationsFor two thousand years she had been

trapped in the hated ruby, trapped on the fingers of countless Duchesses of Ichtar. For two thousand years she had been trapped, listening to countless conversations, watching countless lives drift past through a ruby haze, weeping with the coundess women forced to wear the ring and endure the cursed Dukes of Ichtar.

It had been the damming of the spring two thousand years ago which had bound Zeherah into this ruby, although what other dark enchantments had been used to trap her, she did not know. Which Duke had it been, so frustrated by the bridge's refusal to let him pass that he had decided to dam the spring and drain the Lake of Life? Zeherah could not remember and, in the end, it did not matter very much. All that mattered was that as the waters had dried up so Zeherah felt herself start to fade. As the sun dried the last muddied puddle in the moat, and the bridge sighed and disappeared, the watching Duke on the far bank had pointed into the moat and cried out at the magnificent ruby lying there in the mud. So Zeherah, the fifth Sentinel, had been condemned to eons trapped in this hated gem.

These last thirty-odd years had been the most frustrating of all. She had been on the finger of the previous Duchess of Ichtar when the Icarii Enchanter had spiralled out of the sky and got the StarMan on her. She had been on the finger of the previous Duchess of Ichtar when she had carried the prophesied babe and when she had gone into labour with him. But Searlas, most damned of men, had wrenched her from Rivkah's finger when she was in the throes of labour, and she had not known whether the babe had been born alive or dead.

For many years she had lain in a cold stone vault somewhere deep in the husk that had once been die extraordinary Sigholt. Wondering, weeping with frustration that the Prophecy walked and she knew nothing of it, she could not move from her ruby-red prison. Where were Ogden and Veremund andYr? Were they walking now, too? Where was Jack? Jack! Zeherah could not feel any of her companions, but it was the feather-light touch of Jacks mind that she missed the most. Would she ever see him again?

Then one day Borneheld's hand had reached into the vault and grasped her.

He had carried her to Carlon and placed her on the finger of the next Duchess.

Zeherah had travelled with Faraday through all her adventures, painful and delightful, over the past two years, and with Faraday had watched the Prophecy unfold about her. She had seen the other four Sentinels through Faraday's eyes, but had not been able to communicate with them. She had watched as Faraday fell deeper and deeper in love with the StarMan - Axis, what an unusual name!

She had endured Faraday's marriage to Borne-held and watched the fall of Gorkentown. She had aided Faraday in her determination not to fall pregnant to Borne-held - Mother knew she could not wait to see the end of the line of the Dukes who had cursed her. She had travelled with Faraday through the Sacred Grove and the Enchanted Wood. And tonight Zeherah had watched the death of Borneheld both through Faraday's eyes and through the imprisoning walls of the ruby. And when the StarMan had seized the ruby Zeherah had screamed with delight. When Borneheld s warm