Finally, towards noon, they crawled out of the s.p.a.ce into the map room, brushing dust off their clothes and wings and out of their hair.
SpikeFeather sneezed and, tired out, sank down into one of the chairs at the table. He pushed a pile of maps to one side to make room for his elbow and leaned his head in his hand. "Nothing," he said, his voice emotionless.
WingRidge took the chair next to him. "Perhaps we will think of something after we have slept," he said.
"Perhaps," SpikeFeather replied.
For a while both birdmen sat in silence, too tired to speak, too tired to contemplate the implications of their failure. The members of the Lake Guard who had helped them had either left, or had sunk down to sit against walls, their eyes closed, their skin ashen with exhaustion.
SpikeFeather finally stirred. "At the very least we should think about what to do to protect the people here against the Demons."
WingRidge grimaced. "Yes. I suppose you"re right. I"ll set the guard to shifting them into the Urqhart Hills .
.. perhaps the mines will shelter them until the Demons have gone."
"How are you going to tell Drago you couldn"t find Sanctuary?"
*268 *
WingRidge laughed humourlessly. "What do you mean, how am 7 going to tell Drago?"
He sighed and sat up straight, shuffling maps haphazardly across the table. There were several that they"d brought up from the vaults to study.
"Look at this ancient network of castles around Tencendor," he said idly. "It is a shame most of these are no longer here. They might have proved useful."
SpikeFeather rested his eyes on the map. He was too tired to think. Maybe WingRidge was right. Maybe they would think of something after they"d slept a few hours.
Then his whole body jerked. "WingRidge!"
"What?"
SpikeFeather"s eyes were fixed on the map of the ancient castle systems in front of them. "G.o.ds, WingRidge - why didn"t we see that!"
"What?"
About the room, birdmen and women were stirring from their lethargy, their eyes brightening.
"Look!" SpikeFeather jabbed his finger at Fernbrake Lake. "What do you see?"
WingRidge shrugged. "There"s a castle on its edges. Gone now. Like three dozen more such castles that have disappeared from the ancient landscape."
"No, no! It"s not a "castle". . . it"s a Keep."
WingRidge raised his eyes and stared into SpikeFeather"s face. "What are you trying to say?"
SpikeFeather made a gesture of irritation. "Every one of the other three Lakes have Keeps a.s.sociated with them. Highly magical Keeps."
"Yes ..."
"But not Fernbrake Lake. Why not?"
WingRidge shrugged again. "I don"t know. Maybe there was no need -"
"Yes, there was a need. Every one of the Lakes is supposed to have a Keep! But Fernbrake"s has gone."
"So where is it?"
SpikeFeather hesitated, trying to think it through, trying to find out what was wrong with his idea. But there was nothing. It was perfect.
"It"s sunk," he said.
WingRidge stared at him, then quickly glanced at the others present before he looked back at SpikeFeather.
"Sunk?"
SpikeFeather nodded. "Sunk." His finger tapped the map. "The waterways under Fernbrake Lake hold the Sanctuary, my friend, and the lost castle is the key. Perhaps even is Sanctuary. Now all we have to do is find it."
WingRidge leaned forward and laid his hand gently on SpikeFeather"s arm. "Are you sure your weariness has not addled your wits, my friend?"
270.
29.The Mountain Trails Still in shock, Azhure helped Caelum and Axis to rise. She was trembling badly, and as she gripped both men"s hands, she realised they were, too.
Azhure opened her mouth to ask if they were all right, but thought better of it. She contented herself with patting Caelum"s chest as if to rea.s.sure herself it was still whole, and took Axis" hands and kissed his palms.
Then she looked around. Azhure"s first impression that all the blood had gone was wrong. They were surrounded by it. The bodies of their horses, and of the captain and the men of the escort, were strewn about the floor of the tunnel, splintered bones poking through ragged flesh.
Their swords lay to one side, blades gleaming spotlessly.
She raised her eyes and looked at Axis, and he stepped forward and took her hand.
"Come," he said. "We will walk the remainder of the way."
They picked up their swords and walked forward in silence. Azhure battled back tears. Never had she been as helpless in her entire life as she had been in the past hour. Her son and husband apparently torn to pieces before her eyes, their escort slaughtered, laughed at by beings that but a few months ago would have barely dared to threaten her shadow.
Even Azhure the Plough-keeper"s daughter would have done more against them than she had, she berated herself.
271.
But no, Azhure the once-G.o.d could not even find the words to fling in their defence.
For his part, Axis was thinking much the same. Could he not have done more? G.o.ds! Even a junior Axe- Wielder could have helped more than he"d managed!
They approached a gentle curve in the tunnel. Once around it, the three saw that the tunnel apparently stretched into infinity.
There was no sign of the Alaunt.
"I sincerely hope this does lead to Star Finger," Axis muttered, then straightened his shoulders and looked at Caelum, marching silent and tight-faced by his side.
"Caelum, that black rider ... is he the one who has hunted you through your dreams?"
"Yes. The dreams started soon after Drago fled from Sigholt with the Rainbow Sceptre. They have rarely left me since.
"Cursed be the day I conceived my second son!"
Azhure frowned, remembering what StarLaughter had said. "Axis . . . are you sure that rider is Drago -"
"He has always hunted me!" Caelum cried, halting and swinging to face his mother. "Who else?"
Azhure glanced at Axis - his face was as stubbornly set as Caelum"s - and then took Caelum"s hands in hers.
"Caelum, might it not be StarLaughter"s son, her DragonStar, that hunts you through your dreams?"
All she received by way of reply was a hostile stare.
Azhure took a deep breath and tried again. "Caelum, Axis. StarLaughter was angry that Caelum is heir to the Throne of the Stars and all that it implies. She said that her son should be the heir. She had the legitimate son. That black rider, that DragonStar, rode out of the stars, as her son would -"
"No," Caelum said, pulling his hands from Azhure"s. "Did you not see his face? That was the face of Drago, not some long-dead unborn child!"
.272*
Again Azhure glanced at Axis, but she could see she wouldn"t get any help from him.
"Caelum," she said, "both would look very similar. Drago takes after WolfStar in colouring and features, and naturally StarLaughter"s son would, too. After all, they are virtually brothers -"
Caelum shifted impatiently, angrily. "Drago is my enemy, mother, perhaps more so than any of these Demons. It is the dagger from behind that always strikes home first. And did you not hear StarLaughter?
Drago has pa.s.sed across to her every secret of our family, as he has undoubtedly pa.s.sed across the Sceptre.
The Demons must have it, and I think they will use it to destroy us completely -"
"Caelum," Axis said. "Enough. We need to talk about this in calmer surroundings than this grey tunnel. Star Finger is all we have left, and I would prefer that we expend our energies on walking there instead of arguing among ourselves."
Star Finger is all we have left? Caelum wondered. But Star Finger stores only Icarii knowledge and magic, and Icarii knowledge and magic has as much hope of defeating these Demons as a feather does of surviving a tempest. Is it time to give up? Is it time to say, "enough"? Surely we have done what we can. What more can one do against the treachery of a brother?
They walked in silence, time out of mind, the overhead lights clicking softly on as they approached, then turning themselves out some minutes after they"d pa.s.sed.
They walked in an isolated island of light and time and desperate bravado.
They eventually walked about a long sloping curve of the tunnel to come face to face with the pack of Alaunt sitting facing them.
Every one of the hounds, Sicarius included, had shamefaced expressions.
Azhure stared at them. Could she blame them for fleeing before the dark cloud of murdered children? 273 She sighed, rested her hand briefly on top of Sicarius" head, then walked past. Axis and Caelum followed her, and the hounds fell into step behind the three.
They emerged, eventually, in the Avarinheim forest beneath the first of the Icescarp Alps.
"Stars!" Axis said, as they stood in the dawn air, looking at the trees and the rising cliffs. "How did we come so far, so fast?"
Azhure shrugged. "The tunnels still contain some enchantment, perhaps."
Caelum paid no heed to his parents, instead inspecting the faint path that led through the last of the trees to the rising cliffs. On the several occasions he"d been to Star Finger, Caelum had always used the Song of Movement to transport himself, but now he and his parents would be forced to use the treacherous cliff paths that Rivkah had once traversed.
"We should get moving," he said. "The paths will only be traversable during daylight hours."
He stepped forward, but Azhure grabbed at his arm, looking anxiously between her son and Axis.
"And the Demons?" she said. "And the hours when they roam? How will we protect ourselves once we are past the safety of the trees?"
"There are caves along the trails, Azhure. You must remember those, surely."
She stared at Axis, recalling their own journey so many years ago down the mountain trails in order to join the Avar for Beltide. At night they had sheltered within the many caves that ate into the mountainsides, singing and telling stories, and falling deeper and deeper in love.
She nodded slowly. "They will be all the protection we"ll have."
Caelum scanned the skies. "We must watch for those children, too."
274.
Axis shifted irritably. They were frighteningly vulnerable. Their escort, equipment, horses and food had all gone. They had their swords, true, but swords would not be very useful against any attack that plummeted from the sky, nor would they feed them at night. The mountain trails were notoriously barren of food.
Axis looked about them, wondering if any of the Avar were close, but the forest was silent and still, and they could not waste the time to search a Clan out.
"Caelum"s right," Axis said. "We should get moving, and deal with any threat as it arises. Azhure, send the hounds ranging ahead. If nothing else, they should spring any trap before it closes about us."
She nodded, and ordered the Alaunt down the path before them. Azhure half-expected them to disobey, but they sprang to their feet and loped out of sight down the path the instant she"d finished speaking.
Caelum watched them go. "I do not trust them," he said.
Azhure opened her mouth to defend them, then thought better of it. "It is hard to know who or what to trust now," she eventually said.
Caelum hugged her. "I trust you, and father," he said, and lifted his eyes and smiled at Axis.
For some reason, whether it was the open air or Caelum"s smile, Axis felt more optimistic and light-hearted than he had in days.
"Come," he said. "The mountains await."
The path wound through a final hundred paces of forest before it rose steeply into a curve about the skirts of the first mountain.
All three of them were puffing within minutes.
"How long did it take Rivkah to climb these paths?" Caelum asked after an hour or so of climbing.
Axis tried to remember what his mother had told him of her experiences. "Many, many days," he said. "A week or more."
27S.
"A week!" Caelum said, and looked at his mother ruefully. "Or more."