StarMan (41 page)

Faraday ran and hugged her. "Azhure! Ah, you look so well! And the new babies?"

"They are beautiful children, Faraday, and doing well. I am back in Carlon now."

"You used Spiredore to reach here." "Yes. I hope I am not disturbing you." "Nonsense!"'Faraday linked her arm with Azhure's. "Let's leave the Horned Ones to watch over Caelum and we shall wander, you and I, through the trees of the Sacred Grove to Ur's nursery."

She winked at the Horned Ones, who did not seem to mind being left so precipitously to child-mind, and drew Azhure towards the encircling trees.

"I can see by the power in your eyes, Azhure," she said after they had left the Grove well behind them, "that you have learned well from your time on the Island of Mist and Memory."

"I am now not such a mystery, Faraday," Azhure replied quietly, and told Faraday of her mother and something of what had happened in the Sepulchre of the Moon.

Faraday laughed, knowing that Azhure withheld as much as she told. "You are more a mystery than ever. But," her smile died, "something is troubling you. What is it?"

"And you," Azhure noted, but did not push. Faraday would tell if she wanted to. "Faraday, Axis is hurt. Badly. Crippled. There was a battle in northern Aldeni."

"Azhure!" Faraday stopped, and her expression reminded Azhure how much Faraday loved Axis.

"Tell me!"

Azhure told her what she knew, which was not much. "In the morning I will start my journey to him."

"Can you help him?" A living soul trapped in a corpse? Oh Mother, help him!

"I hope so, Faraday, I hope so."

Faraday shuddered, suppressing the impulse to drop everything she was doing to rush to his side. He was bound to Azhure now, and she would have to be the one to help him. If he
could
be helped. "He must survive, Azhure."

Azhure felt a moment's jealousy as she watched the emotions rush across Faraday's face; Faraday had already demonstrated her love and her power by saving Axis' life after the SkraeBold attack at Gorkenfort. Could she do the same? "I know, Faraday. You do not have to tell
me."

The women continued walking, slowly and silently. About them crazily coloured birds and beasts gambolled, and Azhure wondered that so much gaiety could flash about them when they were wrapped in such morbid thoughts.

Her mind drifted to Rivkah. Faraday had enabled her to conceive a future rival for Axis. Why? Simple revenge? Azhure was about to broach the subject when Faraday spoke, driving the thought completely from her mind.

"I have some news of my own to impart," Faraday said. "You were right to warn me about Gilbert and Moryson."

"Faraday! Did they hurt you?"

"Not through lack of trying, Azhure." Faraday told of her encounter with Gilbert, and Moryson's strange intervention. "I have seen nothing like it, Azhure. He was not the Moryson I remembered. He seemed crazed...oh, I don't know...different. And why strangle Gilbert like that? I'd have thought he would have been as eager to see me dead as Gilbert was. And Moryson has not baulked at murder before - Rivkah and, I suspect, Priam have both been victims of his ambition. Azhure," Faraday abruptly switched the conversation away from Moryson, "Gilbert tried to murder me on behalf of Artor, but it was not simple religious zeal that drove him. His eyes glowed with...well, with power. Artor's power."

"Faraday, be careful, very careful,' Azhure said. "Artor now walks this land." She hesitated. How much could she tell Faraday? "This Prophecy has unleashed more than just Axis and Gorgrael."

Faraday gazed at her. You and me? she thought, and who else? What else?

"Yes," she sighed, lowering her eyes. "None of us will ever be the same. Moryson, strange man, told me that too. He said that if Anor was to come after me personally then I was to turn to you for help."

"Moryson said that?" Azhure frowned. "But he does not know who I am. He disappeared from Carlon well before I..." she drifted into silence, thinking furiously, but keeping her thoughts guarded.

Moryson?

"Well, whatever, why-ever, Moryson thought that you would help me."

Azhure smiled and slipped an arm about Faraday's waist. "Never doubt it. Call me, Faraday, and I will come. There is no-one more than I who would like to see Artor's damned Plough burned to ashes.

But I hope you heed Moryson's warning, as mine. If Gilbert is dead, then there are others Artor can use as instruments."

"Yes, Mama," Faraday said gravely, and Azhure laughed.

"And how goes the planting?"

"Oh!" Faraday smiled happily, glad they had moved to a more pleasant subject. "Azhure, the planting goes so well! All of south-eastern Tencendor now sways to the music of the trees of forest Minstrelsea, and I am currently in the Bracken Ranges...I will spend Yuletide at Fernbrake Lake. And from there I move to Skarabost."

"And are you looking after yourself, Faraday? You are more than vulnerable at the moment."

"Ah, I have a companion. Let me tell you about her."

For a while longer they walked, talking of this and that, until they reached the gate into Ur's garden.

"Faraday," Azhure said as they paused, watching Ur hobble up the garden path towards them, "how will the trees help Axis?"

Faraday looked at Azhure with her great green eyes. "As they know best, Azhure, as they know best...that is all I can say on the matter. We each, methinks, have our mysteries to guard. Ah, here is Ur.

Ur, look who I have brought to visit!"

Azhure turned and took Ur's hand, smiling with genuine warmth. Her eyes slipped over her shoulder.

The nursery behind her looked far less crowded than previously.

"So much has gone home," Ur said softly, "and yet so much more has yet to go. Perhaps, my dear, you can help Faraday transfer some of the seedlings tonight."

"Your Tongue is Far Too Sweet"!

Azhure hugged Ysgryff. "Thank you, Ysgryff, for so much. Your friendship, your stories to while away the long nights on the
Seal Hope,
and most of all, thank you and yours for keeping the secret of the Island of Mist and Memory for so long."

Ysgryff unexpectedly found himself choking with emotion. He had thought himself too cool and far too calculating to fog up this badly. But then he had never had such a niece before, either. She had done both the House of Nor and Niah proud, he decided, patting her back. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, Azhure?"

She leaned back in his arms and wiped the tears from his cheeks. "No, but that has never stopped me before."

He laughed and let her go. "You look tired, niece. Perhaps you miss the swaying bunks of the
Seal
Hope."

"And perhaps I spent the entire night gardening, uncle," she grinned, refusing to elaborate. "Now, say goodbye to your daughter. When she returns hopefully she'll bring her husband with her."

Ysgryff turned to Cazna, who looked more cheerful than she had for months, and hugged her. His youngest daughter had also done him proud, and Carlon would be a bare and lonely place with both Azhure and Cazna gone. Well, perhaps he would invite some of the Icarii Enchanters to visit him - Stars knew, enough of them were flying the southern skies now to spare him an hour or two for a chat.

The group was standing outside the door of Spiredore in the weak mid-morning sunshine. Everyone, save Azhure, looked mystified, some almost unnerved. How was she going to get them all to Sigholt?

The only horse present was Venator, his red coat gleaming with impatience, held by a groom to one side.

Azhure had greeted the horse with affection. It had been a long time since she'd been able to ride, and she patted his neck and pulled his ear and whispered to him that within the day they would be racing across northern Tencendor.

Cazna stood back from her father and rejoined Rivkah, standing with Imibe and the two nurses Azhure had hired in Pirates' Town; each nurse carried a baby in her arms. Around their legs wove excited Alaunt hounds, occasionally forgetting themselves enough to bay at the water and the silent tower before them. They could sense the change in Azhure and the magic awaiting them.

Azhure was, for the first time in months, dressed in slim-fitting grey breeches and a deep-red tunic, her hair left to flow loose down her back. She turned for a final look at Carlon, waved at Ysgryff, then inclined her head towards Spiredore. "Are you ready?"

Rivkah stepped forward, then hesitated. Azhure had refused to explain how she was going to take them to Sigholt, and Rivkah couldn't get the faint suspicion out of her mind that this was all a ruse designed to cover Azhure's own plans to travel alone to the north. Was she going to shove them inside the tower, lock the door, then get on Venator and gallop northwards?

"Nothing of the kind," Azhure said, and opened the door. "Come," and she stepped inside.

Rivkah glanced at the others, annoyed at having her thoughts so clearly read, then followed Azhure into Spiredore.

She stopped almost immediately, her eyes rising upwards, awed by the incredible interior of the tower. Azhure smiled and pulled her gently to one side. "Step over here, Rivkah. There is still a crowd to come."

And a crowd it seemed, once Cazna and the nurses had stepped inside. The Alaunt rushed about the central atrium, and Venator, at Azhure's whistle, trotted through the doorway, trembling slightly at the closeness of both humans and hounds.

Azhure patted him on the neck, quietening him down, and hoped that Spiredore would adjust its risers to his needs.

Behind them the door closed of its own accord, and Azhure wondered if Ysgryff and the servants and even Carlon were still there at all, or if, once the door had closed, there was only one world, and that world was Spiredore.

She grinned at the faces watching her, lifted Caelum more comfortably in her arms, then walked over to the first rise of the stairs. "Spiredore," she said clearly, "I...we...wish to go to the bridge before Sigholt."

And without another word or explanation, she started to climb.

The horse snorted, then stepped after her, his hooves slipping and rattling on the wooden risers.

"Rivkah?" Cazna said in a small voice, and Rivkah grasped the young woman's hand.

"It will be an adventure, Cazna, and you will love Sigholt. Come on," and she led her forward. The hounds bounded past them up the stairs, and Rivkah looked over her shoulder to make sure the nurses followed.

They climbed for almost an hour until Rivkah could bear no more. Her legs were aching, and she had to shift her small satchel from arm to arm to relieve some of the strain on her shoulder. She touched her belly briefly, worried for the baby. What if she
was
too old to carry this child to term?

"Azhure?" she called. "What are we doing? Why are we climbing into this tower?" She stared upwards until the madly

tilted balconies made her dizzy. She swayed on the stairs, and as she did so all her fears rushed to the surface and she cried out, frantically grabbing the railing for support.

Instantly Azhure was by her side, her arm about Rivkah's waist. "Shush, Rivkah. All is well, we are almost there. Trust in Spiredore. Come. You too, Cazna, walk with me up the front, and then you will see."

She pulled them up the stairs, brushing past the horse who had his head up and his ears pricked curiously.

"See?" They had reached the head of the stairs and before them stretched a long corridor, a soft blue mist hanging about its walls and ceiling so that the corridor seemed almost circular.

"What?" Rivkah stopped dead. "How can that be in this tower? It stretches farther than . . ." She stopped, stunned by what she saw at its end. Cazna, at her shoulder, likewise stood unbelieving.

"Sigholt," Azhure said proudly, and Sicarius gave a great cry and bounded down the corridor, disappearing into the sunshine at its end.

Rivkah's eyes filled with tears. What kind of magic did this tower, and Azhure, command? There at the end of the corridor, bathed in sunshine, was the bridge that led into Sigholt, behind it rose soft grey walls and, from the darkness of the fortified gate, strode a man, grey and gaunt, but still alive.

"Roland," she whispered, and stepped out of Azhure's arms and ran down the corridor, laughing.

"Roland!"

Cazna watched with wide eyes.

"Take the reins of my horse and enter Sigholt, Cazna," Azhure said gently, "and when the bridge asks if you are true, answer with your heart."

Roland was stunned, but enormously pleased to see them.

"Rivkah!"

She hugged him breathlessly. "See who else comes, Roland," and the next moment Azhure's great hounds were

baying about his legs, then a young woman who Roland at first thought was Azhure was crossing the bridge leading a horse, stunned amazement on her face as she found herself talking to a bridge. Then Azhure, more beautiful than Roland had remembered her, with three women and three babies, one of whom opened his arms and cried for joy when he saw the old man.

"Roland!"

Roland kissed Azhure on the cheek and took Caelum into his arms. "Azhure! Caelum! What? How?

Ah, dammit. . . what
news?"

"Oh Roland," Azhure laughed. "What news? Have you heard
nothing
since we left to reunite Tencendor?"

Roland was almost quivering with impatience. "News? Here? We are so isolated that we think we live in a world of our own. How many months have passed since Axis led his army from here? How this lad has grown! And these babies?
Yours?"
Azhure grinned at him. "Roland, where are your manners? Here we are, having travelled unknown leagues in but an hour, and you want to keep us gossiping in the courtyard?"

Roland waved them towards the Keep. "Food and a fire, and then you talk. Tell me, how's my good friend Jorge? Still campaigning as if there's no tomorrow?"

Azhure glanced at Rivkah, then she smiled sadly and took Roland's arm. "Roland, there is so much to tell."

Much later, as twilight embraced the Keep and Lake, Azhure stood alone on Sigholt's roof, wearing nothing but a loose white linen shift, her black hair blowing in the warm breeze that swept off the Lake.