"I have lived a very long time to see this day," Azhure murmured by his side. "And I wish to the heights of the Stars themselves it had not needed the destruction of Tencendor to bring it about."
"StarDrifter has discovered the power of pattern - dance - and this book provides the patterns," Caelum said, and smiled, a glorious expression of hope and joy. "We are saved!"
And yet ... yet there was something about Caelum"s eyes. A faint brittleness, so hidden that it was all but invisible to any but those who had occasion to look for it. And seeing it, Faraday looked at Drago, who had now stepped to one side of Caelum.
He saw her gaze, and very slightly inclined his head.
He knows, she thought. Caelum knows. And accepts.
She turned her face aside, lest others see the sorrow there, and question her.
The mood in the chamber had now sharply divided. Axis and Azhure, as their Star G.o.d companions and the scholars, were jubilant, but StarDrifter, WingRidge and SpikeFeather, and Drago and Caelum, were far more reserved. Their faces smiled, and their voices spoke glad words, but their eyes were guarded and hid a knowledge that the others, ignorant, could not yet share.
How indescribably sad, Faraday thought. How Fate brings to its knees those who thought themselves invulnerable. Within this shadowed, damp antechamber, buried so deep in the earth, Drago and myself, StarDrifter, WingRidge and SpikeFeather, know the truth of the matter. As did Caelum, for in his eyes Faraday saw the clarity of knowledge and the certainty, and tragedy, of fate.
* 455.Yet none of the others realised and knowledge had to remain hidden from them. Faraday knew that the salvation of the land, and its peoples, depended on an ultimately murderous and foul deception.
Again.
Faraday buried her face in the hair of the child she held. May Axis and Azhure forgive me and all those who work to keep the knowledge from them.
"StarDrifter?" Axis asked. "Will you join us above in the examination of this book, and a celebration at the news you brought?"
StarDrifter hesitated, his eyes carefully averted from Caelum. G.o.ds, how could Caelum do this? How could Caelum stand there and smile so? Has he finally found the courage and the n.o.bility to do what he must?
"No," StarDrifter said eventually. "Zenith, FreeFall and Zared will need help in evacuating Tencendor. I, perhaps with Drago and Faraday," again his eyes locked with Drago"s, "will return to Fernbrake Lake."
"Drago," Axis muttered. Let him go? Alive!
"Drago will bother me no more," Caelum said, and turned slightly to his brother. "Farewell, Drago." He held out his hand.
Drago gripped it, and nodded, but was unable to speak. After a brief pause he disengaged his hand and helped Faraday and the girl to their feet.
"StarDrifter?" Drago said.
"This way." StarDrifter nodded back down the corridor. "We will travel via the waterways." He shifted his eyes slightly. "Goodbye, Caelum. May the Stars always shine a path for your footsteps."
He embraced his grandson briefly, then turned away.
Axis frowned. That sounded almost like a final benediction. What was StarDrifter thinking of?
Then Faraday paused before Caelum. She, like Drago, was incapable of words, for all she saw was the baby boy that Azhure and Axis loved so much. She leaned forward, hugged him, and kissed his cheek.
The girl reached out a hand, and briefly touched Caelum"s. When he glanced down at her fingers, he saw she held a blood-filled poppy in her hand and when he raised his eyes to her face he saw the blood reflected in the tears in her eyes.
No-one else noticed the exchange. WingRidge saluted Caelum, and nodded, and SpikeFeather bowed.
And then they were gone. Drago, Faraday and the girl followed StarDrifter down the corridor, WingRidge and SpikeFeather behind them.
Save for Caelum, those left behind pondered the solemnity and formality, even the finality, of those goodbyes. And, in so wondering, left no room to ask themselves why StarDrifter, WingRidge and SpikeFeather should travel all this way for that one brief message.
There was a scuffle, and suddenly the Alaunt sprang to their paws and dashed down the corridor. Amid their feet was a brief flash of sapphire.
"What was that?" cried Xanon, but no-one answered her as Azhure leapt forward.
"No!" she cried. "Sicarius! Come back!" Axis caught her and held her back. "Let them go," he said.
"Azhure, they have changed beyond our understanding. Either they know their own destiny, or they have gone mad. Either way it is best to let them go."
Azhure pulled briefly against his hands, then relaxed in grief-stricken acceptance. They might be mad, but they had accompanied her for decades, and they were a living reminder of who, and what, she had once been.
They walked in silence. When they got to the stairwell that led down to the waterways, Drago halted them and squatted in front of the little girl.
"For many weeks now your cries have rung through our dreams," Drago said. "Mine and Faraday"s."
456.
>457.
She regarded him solemnly, nibbling her bottom lip. Then she nodded.
"I had been crying a long time," she said.
"We all have," Drago responded. He hugged Katie and kissed her cheek, then handed her back to Faraday and turned for the stairwell.
The stairs ended in a wide circular cavern, walled and floored in smooth grey stone. In the centre of the cavern flowed a waterway, entering through an arch on one wall, and exiting through an identical arch on the opposite wall. The waterway was narrow, only three paces wide, but like most others in the Underworld it was edged in white stone.
Moored to the side of the waterway, directly across from the stairs, was a flat-bottomed boat.
StarDrifter walked half the distance between waterway and stairs, then halted and addressed Drago.
"Should you have given that book to -"
"Yes," Drago said sharply. "Caelum will need it."
"But -"
"He will return it," Drago said, his tone more even. "In time."
"And he accepted . . .?" Faraday asked. The girl clung close by her, unwilling to let her go even for a moment.
Drago nodded.
"Then the Stars will dance in his honour evermore," WingRidge said, in a tone far more respectful than he had ever used to Caelum"s face. Drago almost told them that Caelum had been the one to murder RiverStar - but why should he? It changed nothing, and he had a feeling that most in this group realised it, anyway.
"And do you finally accept?" WingRidge asked Drago. His face was very still, his eyes fathomless, as he stared at Drago.
A thousand answers raced through Drago"s mind, ten thousand words, a myriad excuses, and yet none of them would do, would they?
4S8 .
"Yes," he said. And this moment was, indeed, the moment when he truly did accept the burden.
WingRidge took a deep breath, and his face tightened with emotion. Then abruptly he fell to one knee, bowed until his forehead touched the knee of his bent leg, and splayed his wings behind him in the traditional Icarii gesture of homage.
"StarSon DragonStar," he said. "My name is WingRidge CurlClaw, and I commend myself and my life to your service. I am one of the six hundred, and I am their leader. Thus I speak with their voice as my voice when I vow them and myself to your name, your word and the vision you embrace. Our lives are yours, our souls are yours . .. StarSon, this entire land is yours."
He slowly lowered his head until his forehead touched the ground before Drago"s feet, then he raised himself back into his kneeling position, his head still bowed.
"WingRidge," Drago said, and placed a hand on WingRidge"s bowed head. "I do thank you for your belief, and I do thank you for your patience. I gladly accept your service, and that of your command."
Drago looked up at the others in the chamber. "I do thank all of you."
StarDrifter took a step forward, gazing intently at his grandson. "Has Caelum welcomed you into the House of the Stars?"
Drago nodded.
"Then I welcome you into my heart, StarSon, and into the House of SunSoar. Will you accept my service?"
Drago smiled gently. "Oh, aye, grandfather," and he leaned forward and embraced StarDrifter.
Then SpikeFeather stepped forward, thinking how appropriate it was that Drago should take the first vows of service in this chamber where, so many years ago, Orr had taken SpikeFeather"s life into service.
"I am yours, StarSon," he said, and Drago nodded and embraced him as well.
* 459".
"I know it, SpikeFeather."
Then, slowly, he looked at Faraday.
She opened her mouth, but did not know what to say. If she vowed him her service, her life, did that mean she promised to love him? She couldn"t do that, she couldn"t, Drago saw her distress, and understood her hesitation. He took one of her hands gently between his.
"Faraday, I pledge to you my service. You have already done enough for this land."
Emotion threatened to overwhelm her. She stared at him through eyes swimming with tears. If he"d said anything else, or demanded a single promise from her, she would have felt justified in hating him . . . and justified in denying him. Now she had to stand here silent and gape at him. What he"d said was, firstly, as formally bonding as any marriage vow - a stronger bonding, in fact, given who and what he was - and secondly .. . secondly . . . didn"t it mean that he put her before Tencendor?
No. No! It could not be! He had already vowed that he would let nothing stand in his way in order to save the land. That was his father in him all over again. No, no, she could not, would not, believe him . .. she dare not!
"No," she whispered, and pulled her hand from his. "I do not accept your service."
There was an audible gasp in the chamber, probably from either StarDrifter or WingRidge, for Drago"s face had gone stark white and he was so obviously shocked he was incapable of speech.
Faraday stared at him, wondering what she had done. One part of her screamed to take his hand back before it was too late, another part screamed at her that she should turn and run, run before it was too late, run before she admitted to herself that she was so deeply in love with him she would murder herself all over again if it meant he could live ...
"As you wish," Drago whispered in a frightful, rasping tone, and turned on his heel and walked towards the boat.
460.
As he moved away, StarDrifter and WingRidge stared at Faraday with such utter incomprehension on their faces, such tightly controlled anger, she thought she would have to turn and run. Then ...
. . . then the little girl, forgotten, slipped her hand into Faraday"s cold one, and buried her head in Faraday"s skirts. Faraday closed her eyes and shuddered, and from somewhere deep inside her drew the strength to carry on and walk towards the boat as if she had but brushed away a piece of inconsequential fluff.
461.
49.Salt"s " "^T. ~T ou see," StarDrifter said hurriedly, trying to think of Y something to say to cover the dreadful -*- awkwardness in the chamber. "I have discovered the secret of the waterways. They are connected to the craft, they link them, and thus they serve the crafts" will. Thus, as long as the travellers" wish corresponds to the crafts" overall intention, the waterways will do exactly what you will."
"That"s very interesting," Drago said, and at the sound of Drago"s voice StarDrifter shut up.
"Why would the waterways send us three boats?" Faraday asked, looking at a distant point over StarDrifter"s shoulder, and trying to sound normal. Curse Drago for putting her in this predicament!
There had been a boat moored to the side of the waterway when they"d arrived, but during the conversation on the landing two more boats, linked by ropes, had drifted out of the tunnel entrance.
StarDrifter turned, stared, and faced the group again. "Obviously there has been some kind of -"
"Silence!" WingRidge barked, his entire body tensing, and he laid one hand on the hilt of the knife he carried.
Everyone stilled.
There was a distant sound . . . rather like soft rain. A scuffling, but regular, and very persistent.
* 462 *.
"Something is coming down the stairwell," SpikeFeather said, who was closest to the stairs.
WingRidge looked at Drago. "Would Caelum have - " "No. Whatever this is has not been instigated by Caelum," Drago said. But our parents? he wondered. Axis would have little reason to hold his hand.
The regular scuffling resolved itself into the padding of many paws.
"It is the Alaunt," Faraday said, and without reason all the childhood tales she"d heard of the hounds - mythical man-hunters, ferocious devourers, child abductors - came rushing back, and she clutched Katie tight to her. The child caught some of her fear, and whimpered.
One of the Alaunt appeared at the curve of the stairs. Sicarius. He paused, looking carefully between the members of the company, and then he sunk as low as he could, whined, and crawled down the final flight of steps on his belly. Behind him, successive Alaunt did the same. Sicarius reached the floor, paused, then wriggled his way towards Drago, his tail wagging gently behind him. His golden eyes remained steady and unblinking on Drago.
Drago returned his stare with equally unblinking eyes, and Faraday frowned as she looked at him. His eyes were deeper, far more powerful than she"d ever seen them. Compelling.
He is discovering more of his true nature every day, she thought, just as I did when I travelled south to the Island of Mist and Memory. Drago had spent much of their journey from Gorkenfort in deep introspection, exploring, growing, learning to trust his instinct and to recognise the ancient power of Noah as it coursed through his veins. The speed at which Drago learned and grew was almost frightening, and Faraday repressed a shiver, already regretting her dismissal of his vow. Not so much that she"d refused it, but that she"d done so in such cruel manner.
She had been right to refuse it ... hadn"t she?
463.
Faraday closed her eyes briefly, and drove into a deep, dark place the nagging thought that she"d done the wrong thing, and that it might, just might, be safe to allow herself to love him, and to accept his love.
Drago squatted down before Sicarius and laid the palm of his right hand on the hound"s skull.
"Do you present me your service?" he asked.
As one the entire pack of Alaunt leapt to their feet and burst into cry, the sound of their clamour resounding about the rounded chamber.