CHAPTER FOUR

Palace of the First, Yoyette, Coroleas

S tarDrifter SunSoar, Prince of the Icarii, may I join you?”

StarDrifter turned on the garden bench, bristling with anger both at the salutation and at the intrusion.

Prince of the Icarii? That was either sarcasm or flattery, and StarDrifter despised both.

A man stood a pace or two away. He was entirely nondescript, from his middling height to his middling features to his middling brown eyes, but there was something about him that StarDrifter instinctively disliked.

That hint of slyness in the man’s eyes, perhaps, or those too casually clasped hands held before him.

“I came to the garden for peace,” said StarDrifter. “Go away.”

He turned his back on the intruder, not caring if he offended.

The man behind him drew a breath preparatory to speaking, and StarDrifter tensed. All he wanted was to be left alone, and if that man started to whine at him about wanting to know all about the Icarii race, then he was going to leap up from this garden bench and—

“I was having a noonday meal with your son Axis not a few weeks past,” said the stranger, “and wondered if you’d like to know what he—”

“What?” StarDrifter exploded off the bench, so startling the man that he almost stumbled in his haste to step backward.

“What manner of cruel mischief is this, then?” StarDrifter said, striding up to him and taking a fistful of the man’s shirt in his hand. “Who put you up to this?”

The man did not flinch in the face of StarDrifter’s anger. “I am sorry to so disturb you with the news of your son’s return,” he said softly. “I apologize. I should have spoken more circumspectly.”

“Who are you?” said StarDrifter. “And what the fuck do you want from me?”

“Merely a few moments of your time,” said the man, who seemed to be growing in confidence with every breath. “I can offer you news of your son, and I can offer you a means by which to regain the Star Dance, but if you’re not interested…”

StarDrifter almost hit the man. He was furious, not only that this man had been sent, for whatever reason, to torment him, but that he might actually be telling the truth. Axis had returned, and there might be a means to once more revel within the magic of the Star Dance, but, oh, to even think about that was so brutally painful that StarDrifter did not think he could bear it.

“Who are you?” he said, almost spitting the words out.

“My name is Ba’al’uz, and I come from the Tyranny of Isembaard to the south of the FarReach Mountains. I understand your distress, StarDrifter, and once again I apologize for my overdirectness in approaching you, but if you could kindly release me…”

StarDrifter let the man’s shirt go and stood back. His blue eyes were brilliant with emotion, his face flushed, and anger radiated out of him like a dangerous fever. Ba’al’uz thought that StarDrifter exuded far more presence than his son, the Icarii’s anger being underscored by a powerful sensuality and an undisciplined ego.

He would suit Ba’al’uz’ purpose very well.

“I don’t believe you,” said StarDrifter.

“Of course you don’t,” Ba’al’uz said, “for I have not yet had a chance to explain myself. May we sit?”

“No. Just tell me what you must, then leave.”

“You are not going to want me to leave once you hear what I have to say,” Ba’al’uz said softly.

“Just say it!”

“In the land where I come from, we have a powerful structure. We call it DarkGlass Mountain, although in ages past it was known as Threshold. It acts in the same manner as your Star Gate once did, and, although it is infinitely more powerful than the Star Gate was, it is capable of being controlled and directed. It is perfectly possible that DarkGlass Mountain can filter the music of the Star Dance for you.

If it does not do so already, then that is because no one has ever asked it to try.”

StarDrifter did not know what to say. He stared at this man, almost hating him for what he was saying—Was it true? Could it possibly be true?—and wanting to have the strength to just turn his back and walk away from him.

“Perhaps a small demonstration?” Ba’al’uz said.

StarDrifter replied only with a flat stare.

Ba’al’uz gave a small shrug of indifference to StarDrifter’s continuing hostility and gestured to a stone bench, where StarDrifter sat down, his every movement stiff.

“So far distant from DarkGlass Mountain,” said Ba’al’uz, “I can only draw forth a fraction of the power normally available to me, but it shall be enough to give you an idea of the pyramid’s potential.”

He gathered some twigs from the ground and sat at the other end of the bench, leaving a clear stretch of stone between himself and StarDrifter. “Now, if you could hold these twigs here, like this, yes, thank you, and I take these and hold them so, then we have the most basic of structures, a pyramid, yes?”

StarDrifter made no response. His anger hadn’t abated, but now he felt foolish also, for allowing this man to trick him into this—

“Watch,” said Ba’al’uz, very softly. “Watch the pyramid.”

The two men held between them a loosely constructed pyramid of twigs. As StarDrifter looked down, he felt the unmistakable aura of power emanating from the man Ba’al’uz. He glanced at the man’s face, then looked down at the twigs again.

And gasped.

A moment ago the structure had been nothing but loose twigs held together in the vague semblance of a pyramid.

Now the twigs had vanished, replaced by lines of light enclosing a space that glowed with a very soft rosy radiance.

Ba’al’uz muttered something, and the rosy radiance dissipated, replaced with a view of a fair-haired and bearded man sitting under the stars by a fire, entertaining a group of soldiers with a harp.

StarDrifter’s mouth dropped open.

That was Axis!

The vision faded, and a moment later the lines of light were replaced once more by twigs, which Ba’al’uz let topple slowly to the ground.

StarDrifter could not for the moment speak. He was still stunned at seeing his son. He did not doubt what he’d seen. That had not been a vision conjured from the far past, when Axis had been BattleAxe. For one thing, Axis had been wearing unfamiliar clothes, and for another, he’d worn the face that StarDrifter had last seen—tired and careworn—if now overlaid with something else…a sense of mischief, StarDrifter thought. His son was having fun, whatever he was doing.

“Why is my son back?” StarDrifter said. “How did he come back?”

“I brought him back,” said Ba’al’uz, lying in order to secure StarDrifter’s full cooperation, “using the power of DarkGlass Mountain. If it can do that, StarDrifter, it can touch the Star Dance for you as well.”

“Take me to him,” StarDrifter said. “Please.”

Oh, gods, Axis was back!

Slyness slipped all about Ba’al’uz’ face. “Of course,” he said, “but in return I would ask that you do something for me.”

“What?”

“I would like you to steal the Weeper from Salome, the Duchess of Sidon.” Ba’al’uz smiled as StarDrifter looked shocked. “You can think of it as a parting gift to the Coroleans.”

“I can’t…no one can get near the Weeper. Stars, Ba’al’uz, that is the most closely guarded deity in Coroleas!”

Ba’al’uz noted that StarDrifter had not actually refused.

“Perhaps we can discuss this over a glass of wine somewhere?” he said. “If you are willing, I can tell you just how easy it shall be to take the deity…and free its soul.”

Ba’al’uz had noted StarDrifter’s disgust during Fillip Day, and thought he understood the reason behind it.

“I want to free the Weeper,” Ba’al’uz said. “Do you?”