Despite her sadness over Zared, and her worries about Zenith, Leagh found that her heart lifted as they exited the Keep and clattered over the bridge.
     "Farewell, lovely Leagh!" the bridge cried, and Leagh laughed.
     "Farewell to thee also, fair bridge. May your arches never crumble."
     "And your spirits never falter," the bridge responded, and then Leagh, with Herme to one side and Theod to the other, was over the bridge and into the blue mists.
     They rode south for many hours, then turned slightly east, heading for the trail that would lead them through the southern Urqhart Hills to Jervois Landing. They broke clear of the mist mid-afternoon, to find the hills bathed in sunshine and the skies awash with migrating brown Skelder birds, heading south from the Icescarp Alps towards their wintering fields in Coroleas.
     "You always know when autumn bites deep," Herme remarked, his eyes to the sky, "when the Skelder birds abandon Tencendor."
     Yet even though it was DeadLeaf-month, the sun was still strong, and Leagh let her cloak flare back from her shoulders in the westerly wind.
     "Theod, will you take the riverboat south with us at Jervois Landing, or will you ride west to your home estates?"
     Theod hesitated, glancing at Herme. "I still have to make my plans, Leagh. I will stay with you a while yet, though."
     Leagh nodded, and let the topic slide. It would be a ride of perhaps two or three days to Jervois Landing, and at the moment she was so excited at the thought that they would camp this evening in the ruins of Hsingard that she could think of little else.
     Hsingard had once been a lovely and substantial stone city, the capital of Ichtar. But during Axis' war with Gorgrael, the Destroyer's Skraelings had invaded it, destroyed it, and built themselves massive breeding hatcheries in its basements. In some wondrous manner that Leagh did not quite understand, Azhure had in a single night destroyed all the Skraelings and hatchlings, and now Hsingard lay a sad sprawl of tumbled ruins.
     There might be no life in it, but it made a good camp site.
     Four of Herme and Theod's men stretched canvas covers over several piles of stones, creating a spacious and deeply shadowed shelter removed from the camp of the thirty-six men of the escort. Leagh sat and watched as Theod made a fire. A man fetched food from one of the packs on the supply mules, and within a half-hour of pulling their horses into the ruins everyone was seated, eating.
     There was little conversation. It had been a hard ride to get from Sigholt to Hsingard in one day and Leagh soon found herself wishing Herme and Theod would move off to their sleeping rolls so she could curl up and get as much rest as she could on the hard ground. But they seemed curiously reluctant, even when the rest of the camp had settled for the night, and they sat tossing sticks into the fire, and occasionally looking about into the night.
     "Gentlemen, are you afraid that there are Skraelings left within the ruins?"
     Herme jumped slightly, and looked at Leagh. "Nay, sweet lady. It's just that you never know whether or not brigands might creep by in the night, and -"
     "You have posted no guards."
     "Foolish of us," Herme said, and turned to Theod. "Why didn't you think of that?"
     "Me? I… ah…"
     Theod was saved from further comment by the sound of a distant horse.
     Leagh tensed a little. "Who could that be?"
     "I'll look," Theod said hurriedly, rising and walking off into the night.
     Leagh noticed he hadn't taken his sword. "Herme, what's going on?"
     "There's nothing to worry about," Herme said soothingly, and was about to say something more when they heard Theod talking quietly with someone in the distance.
     Herme hesitated, then rose to his feet. "Leagh, stay here. Whatever happens, do not move."
     And he was gone.
     Leagh pulled her cloak about her nervously and stared before her. Despite Herme's caution, she was tempted to move further back into the ruins. The only thing that stopped her was the thought that she didn't know what might be behind her, awaiting her arrival.
     Whoever Theod had found to talk to had now been joined by Herme. Leagh could hear low voices, now so far away she couldn't really distinguish them.
     They stopped, and she tensed.
     Silence.
     Then the sound of someone walking towards her.
     She swallowed, suddenly aware of how vulnerable she was. The nearest forms of sleeping solders were at least twenty paces away, and the cul-de-sac of tumbled stones that the men had stretched a canvas over for her was as much a trap as it was a shelter.
     The steps came closer, and slowly she rose to her feet, prepared to run if she had to.
     Then she froze, her eyes wide and disbelieving.
     Zared had stepped into the flickering circle of firelight.
      "Hello, Leagh," he said. "May I join you?"
     She just stared stupidly.
     "Leagh?" He stepped forward.
     "What are you doing here?" Shock had made her voice harsh, and Zared faltered.
     "Leagh?"
     "Zared… what are you doing here?"
     He grinned, and walked around the fire towards her. "That is a stupid question to ask the man who loves you."
     And then he had his arms wrapped about her, and was kissing her, but Leagh was still too shocked and bewildered to play the lover, and she pushed her hands against his chest until her mouth was free.
     "Zared, what are you -"
     He sighed, and his arms loosened a little. "I said I would fight for you, Leagh… but I didn't realise the battle would be so hard."
     "But-"
     "Theod and Herme said they would bring you to Hsingard. I've been waiting here for some three or four days."
     "Why?"
     Zared sighed. "Why do you think? Did you accept Caelum's decision?"
     "We have no choice, Zared. Caelum is -"
     "Do we have no choice?" he interrupted softly, then his hand was buried in her hair and he stopped her protests with a kiss that was considerably deeper and more thorough than the last.
     "Come back to Severin with me," he whispered eventually. "Come with me and be my wife."
     "But Caelum said -"
     "What in curses' sakes can Caelum do once we are married?"
     She was silent, thinking.
     Zared held her as close as he could, rocking her gently back and forth. "Be my wife, Leagh. Be courageous enough to be my wife."
     Leagh's head was swimming with conflicting ideas and emotions. Zared, so close, so warm, offering her what she so desperately wanted. But she was Leagh, Princess of the West, and she couldn't just run off with a man her overlord had expressly forbidden her to marry. And what would Askam say? What would Askam do? Would she ever see Carlon again? Was Zared worth being totally ostracised from elite Tencendorian society - for Leagh had no doubt that was what would happen.
     And then she was overcome with remorse for thinking that. Here was the man who loved her, and she him. He would only ever be her true chance for happiness, and she was worried about her social standing?
     But how deeply would she hurt Askam? And what would Caelum do?
     "Sweetheart." Zared kissed her cheek, her ear, her neck. "What say you? Will you come back to Severin with me, will you be my wife?"
     He didn't give her a chance to answer, but kissed her again, moulding her body to his.
     It was too much. Leagh just didn't have the courage to say no.
     "Yes?" Zared asked, and she simply nodded her head, her eyes swimming with tears, both for love of Zared, and fear of what her actions would do to Askam.
     He smiled, and Leagh frowned slightly, thinking it an odd expression, almost one of triumph.
     He shifted slightly, and Leagh realised he was pulling her back into the canvas-covered rock shelter.
     "No," she said, and she truly meant it.
     "What does a week or two matter, my love?" he asked, his strength too much for her. "The public notary in Severin can marry us soon enough, and I can assure you there will be no physical inspection of the goods beforehand."
     Leagh blushed a deep red. "No."
     And yet now here they were, deep within the shelter, and Zared had pulled the flap to, shutting them into an almost total darkness.
     "Don't rush me -" she started, but he laughed softly.
     "Rush? Why rush? We have a long autumn night ahead of us, my love, and I am in no mood to rush."
     His fingers were at her throat, and suddenly her cloak fell away, and then his hands, his insistent, strong hands, had pushed her jacket over her shoulders and halfway down her arms.
     Then he stopped and Leagh, her arms trapped, could do nothing as he unbuttoned her linen shirt and ran his hands and then his lips over her bared breasts.
     She considered screaming - but was deeply embarrassed at the thought of what the men who answered her scream would find.
     "No," she said yet again, but her voice was weakened with indecision, and he heard it.
     He laughed again, low, and held her to him, running his mouth from her breast to her throat and then to her own mouth. His hands finally jerked off her jacket and shirt, and then she was somehow lying on her back amid the blankets and he was a dark shape and weight above her.
     He murmured in her ear, sweet words that meant nothing but nevertheless relaxed her, and she lifted her hips of her own accord when he pulled at the waistband of her breeches, and let him slide them off.
     "You are so beautiful, Leagh," he whispered, "so precious."
     And she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms about him, and like the peasant woman she had always dreamed of being, she let the man she loved enter her body and love her. If there was a child from this, she thought, then so be it, and Askam and Caelum must accept it.
     Then there was no more space for coherent thought, and she cried out, and clutched at his back, and hoped that the night would never end.
     It was dawn when he finally let her drift off to sleep. But Zared stayed wakeful, holding her against him, still running an exploratory hand over her body, marvelling at his love for her.
     Yet there was more to it than that, and Zared was honest enough to admit it. It was not just Leagh he had seduced that night, but the West. It was not just Leagh's body he had invaded, but Askam's lands of the West.
     His hand stilled, and he smiled into the faint light filtering past the canvas flap. Whatever Askam and Caelum might do to him, there was nothing they could do to undo last night.
     "Is it done?" Herme asked when Zared emerged.
     Zared nodded, and Herme grunted, relieved. "What will she do when she finds out?"
     Zared's hands stilled in the act of buckling his weapons belt. "There is nothing she can do, Herme. Not now."
     There was a movement, and Leagh emerged. She blushed faintly and dropped her eyes when she saw Herme, and he turned away to give her privacy.
     They rode south that morning, but some eight leagues above Jervois Landing they swung due west.
     Leagh found it hard to believe what she had done -she knew that had she been given an hour alone to consider Zared's request she would have refused. After all, she couldn't submit to her dreams at the expense of her duty… but that was exactly what she had done.
     Gods! What had she done? She loved Zared, she truly did, but Leagh was also very much afraid of the consequences of her seduction.
     And what were Herme and Theod doing riding with Zared? That thought was too frightening to think through to its natural conclusion, so Leagh left it well enough alone.
     I won't lie with him again, she said to herself. I won't. I will find a way to slip away… and if there is no child, then last night can be forgotten…
     But there was no chance to slip away, and when that night Zared again drew her down to the ground, she submitted meekly enough.
     And so again the next night, and by then, Leagh knew she was committed to Zared. She had no choice. By that stage there were some three dozen tongues of the escort willing to testify that Leagh was a maiden no longer, and that it was Zared, Prince of the North, who had so possessed her.
     On their fourth day from Hsingard they splashed their horses across the wide and shallow upper reaches of the River Azle, riding towards a small valley to the northeast.
     Leagh was daydreaming, wondering what Zared's palace in Severin would be like, when she was suddenly snapped out of her reverie by a glint of steel in the distance.
     And again.
     "Zared -" she began.
     But he silenced her with a raised hand. "It is safe, Leagh. Those are my men."
     "An escort to see us back to Severin? Do we part with Herme and Theod here?"
     He spurred his horse forward and did not answer.
     Angry, Leagh urged her own mount after him, but as they drew closer she drew rein, aghast.
     True, the standard that many of the men wore was Zared's… but there was a unit of Herme's, and there one of Theod's. And there, more of Herme's men!
     What was happening? Why were Herme's and Theod's men waiting so neatly arrayed in battle gear with Zared's troops?
     "Oh no," she whispered, and then Zared rejoined her.
     "Leagh… Leagh, we will not be riding for Severin after all. There is some… business that we must attend in the south."
     "Where?" she asked, her eyes bright, her hands clenched into fists about her reins.
     Zared thought about not telling her, then decided it wouldn't matter. She would have no chance to… no chance to escape.
     "Kastaleon."
     Impatient love For a 't east t( areas or a week Drago and Zenith moved slowly southeast towards Minstrelsea. They kept to uninhabited and rarely trodden pathways, and Zenith cloaked them as best she could with enchantments from curious eyes.
     Even so, she could not understand why farflight scouts had not spotted them. Whether it was Niah, or some sickness battling within her, Zenith found that the cloaking enchantments had abnormally taxed her strength - and even then, the enchantments were weak.
     Zenith glanced at the sack in Drago's arms.
     Whatever their luck at evading capture so far, Zenith and Drago both believed they ran only on borrowed time. Scouts would spot them, a peasant on his way to market would stop and ask them their business, or WolfStar would finally arrive to claim his bride.
     Both hoped they could still escape.
     Drago managed to snare a rabbit the evening before they approached the ferry that crossed the Nordra above the site where once had stood the village of Smyrton. It had been days since they'd eaten, and even though Zenith produced a fire with her Enchanter powers, they gobbled down the meat half-raw, burning fingers and mouths.
     "We'll get to Minstrelsea by tomorrow," Drago said as he regretfully regarded the well-chewed bone in his hand. "We'll be safe there."
     Brave words, thought Zenith, but she nodded dispiritedly anyway.
     Drago lifted his eyes. He could not imagine what it must be like to live with another inside you. Zenith had told him how she had been fated to be the reborn future of Niah, their grandmother. WolfStar's reborn lover. Fate? Drago imperceptibly shook his head. SunSoar manipulation, more like.
     Damn all SunSoars to eternal fire! Drago thought, throwing the bone to one side with a jerky motion. Both of us left to run through the night by events out of our control!
     As Drago reached for the final morsel of rabbit flesh, Zenith dropped her face into her hands and began to cry silently. Drago dropped the meat, scrambled about the fire, and put his arm about her.
     "Shush, Zenith. I am here."
     She let him hold her for a while, then she made an effort to wipe her eyes and sat up a little.
     "I know what you have been thinking, Drago," she said. "You have been damning all the SunSoars to a particularly nasty fate."
     Drago tried to smile for her, but the effort failed dismally. "And curse your Enchanter powers, too, Zenith."
     That did raise a small smile from his sister. "Drago, I hope you never know what it is like to have another being battling for control of you. There is this thing," she hissed the word, "coiling about in my mind, trying to tell me that she is me, and I her."
     Drago was silent.
     "But… no! I refuse to believe it. I am Zenith, and this thing inside me is foreign and unwelcome and completely apart from me. But she writhes and calls to me, and begs me to lay down in WolfStar's arms!"
     "Can you cast her aside?"
     Zenith shook her head miserably. "I have tried every trick I know, used all of my powers. I have even begged her. But she has sunk such determined claws into my mind and soul that I do not know how to remove her."
     Drago thought of how death had changed Niah into the grasping demon she was now. "I do not ever want to die, if this is what death means," he remarked.
     Zenith shrugged a little. "She is determined for life, and she cares not that she snatches mine in the process."
     "And she calls to WolfStar?"
     "Constantly. I try to dampen her call, but… oh Stars, Drago! I am terrified he will hear, and find us!"
     "Shush, Zenith. No-one has found us yet, and soon we will be in the forest."
     She didn't answer, and after a moment she turned away and curled up for the night.
      Zenith woke in the early hours of the morning, shivering with the cold. She sat up, wrapping her wings more closely about her, and threw some more wood on the glowing coals.
     She shivered again, and this time Zenith realised it was something other than the cold.
     Something else. Somewhere out there in the darkness.
     Coming closer.
     Fast.
     She whimpered and hugged her arms about her, and this time Zenith was so frightened she leaned over to shake Drago awake.
     Niah! Ah, my love! I have found you!
     Stars! Zenith froze in the act of leaning over to Drago. It was WolfStar! Close… very, very close, but not yet here.
     She stared at Drago, knowing he was dead if WolfStar found him.
     Without a thought for her own safety, she lurched to her feet and ran into the night.
     She ran, not knowing where she could run, but knowing she could not outrun WolfStar. He was still in the ethereal, not the physical, and that meant she had a few minutes to put as much distance between the camp site and herself as possible.
     His voice followed her, homing in on her, homing in on the Niah-voice's call - now almost thundering through Zenith's mind, threatening to swamp her completely —but Zenith knew she had to hang on as long as she could, hang on until she was far, far from Drago.
     She tried to lift into the air, but she was weak, and her wings failed her, and the next instant her foot caught in a fox's burrow and she was falling, falling, tumbling down an incline.
     "My love!"
     Strong arms grasped her and prevented her crashing into the rocks at the foot of the gully.
     WolfStar.
     "My love," he said again, and Zenith knew she was lost, she could not fight him and Niah at the same time.
     "My love," he said yet one more time, and his hands ripped at her gown, bruising her flesh.
     She bit her tongue, knowing if she cried out Drago might wake and come looking for her, and then she felt a knee force itself between her legs.
     WolfStar grunted, and settled himself upon her. He had waited too long. Far too long.
     WolfStar thrust, and Zenith moaned. Again he thrust, and Zenith twisted her head to one side, hoping that Drago had not woken, hoping she had run far enough.
     She could do nothing but endure this rape. Something - someone - else now controlled her arms, her entire body. Appalled, Zenith found that her hands now grabbed at WolfStar's shoulders and back, encouraging him, and her body writhed under his, her hips arching to meet him, her voice now strangely demanding that he expend greater effort upon her satisfaction.
     And the true horror of it was that she found herself enjoying this, enjoying the feel of him, the fire of him inside her.
     ,' wish he would never stop.
     No! But she did not have the strength or the control for the cry. WolfStar was playing to her SunSoar blood, and playing to the Niah-soul within her, and so finally she gave up the struggle, and allowed WolfStar and her own body their independent ways.
     He jerked and shuddered, and she felt the extension of his own life fill her womb.
     And something else.
     No, no, no, no…
     Even as he withdrew from my body I could feel the fire that he had seeded in my womb erupt into new life. He laughed gently at the cry that escaped my lips and at the expression in my eyes, but I could see his own eyes widen to mirror the wonder that filled mine. For a long time we lay still, his body heavy on mine, our eyes staring into each other's depths, as we felt you spring to life within my womb.
     It was happening all over again! He lay hot and oppressive over her, the stickiness and dampness of his body where it touched hers repulsive, his eyes fixed on hers, and both felt the new life leap in her womb.
     "Our magical, magical daughter," he whispered, a hand now pressed into her belly. "Do you feel her?"
     Zenith could not find the strength to speak. Again she turned her head to one side, trying to ignore him, hoping he would go away now that he'd used her.
     WolfStar thought her movement only the languor of love. He kissed her, and rubbed and pinched her nipple, and he lay still longer, enjoying her warmth and what he thought was her love.
     Zenith moved, trying to ease off his weight, but her movement only aroused WolfStar once more, and then again he was atop her and moving within her. Again she found her hands encouraging him, and her body writhing wantonly under his, again her voice moaning and calling out to him, and Zenith let go, the only thing she could do, and slipped completely into the pits of oblivion, leaving Niah to enjoy her lover.
     Drago woke suddenly, thinking he'd heard a faint cry. He lay, wrapped in his cloak, watching the flames leap in the fire, listening.
     There, again. The hoarse cry of a man - and Drago was old enough and experienced enough to recognise that cry for what it was.
     Puzzled, he pushed himself into a sitting position, glancing over to make sure Zenith was asleep… and saw nothing but the flattened grass where she had once lain.
     "Oh gods!" he whispered, appalled, and struggled to his feet.
     Where had that sound come from? Where?
     Ah, there… again!
     Drago hurried into the night.
     "Ah," WolfStar breathed, and then cried, and then shuddered again.
     Go away, go away, go away, Zenith thought in a litany of repugnance. Go away! When would he have done? When?
     WolfStar sighed and rolled off her, leaning up on an elbow and stroking her face. "Under the stars," he whispered. "Perfect."
     Zenith tried to smile, but found it difficult.
     WolfStar smiled and kissed her. "Now that I have found you…" he whispered, then sighed again - in impatience this time - and sat up. "I wish I could stay, but I must away. Damn your brother - did you know he has escaped?"
     Zenith looked at him, but did not speak.
     WolfStar, busy rearranging his breeches, did not notice. "I have tried to scry him out, but I cannot find him. I must find him, for I cannot allow him to live through this crime."
     He paused, his face puzzled. "But I cannot scry him out. Has he refound his power? Has he?"
     And he swivelled to look Zenith direct in the eye.
     She managed to find her voice. "How can I know? I have not seen him for many days."
     He frowned. "And why are you running, my lovely? Why? Where?"
     She smiled for him, although it cost her dearly to do so. "I have been struggling to come to terms with what you told me, WolfStar. I… I thought to go south… south to…"
     "Ah, the Island of Mist and Memory," WolfStar said. "Yes, that would indeed be best for you."
     He rose. "I will see you there, Niah. Wait for me."
     And he shimmered and vanished.
     Drago got to the lip of the gully just in time to see WolfStar lift himself from Zenith's side and then disappear.
     "Zenith!" he cried, and started to clamber down the side of the gully.
     She lay curled on her side, naked, bruised and bloodied, her hands over her belly.
      Her eyes were wide open, staring.
     "Zenith?" Drago hesitantly touched her shoulder. "Zenith?"
     She didn't move, or even acknowledge his presence.
     "Zenith… come." He pulled gently on one arm, and finally managed to get her to sit up.
     She blinked, as if seeing him for the first time, then she burst into tears and hugged him tight.
     "Oh gods, Drago," she sobbed, "you're alive!"
     He carried her back to their makeshift camp, wrapped her in her cloak, and sat her by the fire. He had no idea what to say to her, what she wanted to hear.
     She kept her face averted, her eyes on the fire, apparently lost in thought.
     She hardly blinked.
     But when the sun rose, so too did Zenith, wrapping the cloak more closely about her nakedness.
     "The ferry is only a few hours away," she said, and walked off.
     Stunned, Drago stared after her, then after a minute snatched at his sack and got to his feet.
     They had to wait over an hour for the ferry to come back to their side of the shore, and when the ramp had been dropped, they stepped as silently onto the ferry as they had walked the last three hours.
     "Fare," grunted the ferryman, a man as thin and insipid as the waterweed he plied his craft through.
     "Zenith," Drago murmured. "Zenith, you need to do something. I have no coin."
     Zenith lifted her head and stared at Drago, then she shifted her eyes back to the waters of the river disinterestedly.
     Drago opened his mouth, then closed it again. He thought frantically - what could he do? He fumbled with the sack, sliding his hand in as if he was going to withdraw money.
     "No fare and I don't move this craft," the ferryman said, and now there was a gleam of malice in his eyes. At the other end of the ferry two muscular assistants picked up short, thick poles and hefted them menacingly.
     Drago groped about in the sack, pretending to search for a sack. Maybe he could hit the ferryman with it and jump off. Maybe he could… his eyes widened, and he slowly withdrew his hand. In his palm lay a newly minted silver piece.
     The ferryman leaned forward and snatched it.
     "That's more than the fare," Drago said.
     "Aye, but I've had to wait for it," the ferryman said. "Want to argue the matter with my sons?"
     The two assistants stepped yet closer.
     Drago retreated. "Just get us to the other side as fast as you can."
     "Aye, my lord," and the ferryman gave a mock bow.
     Drago waited until he had moved away, then whispered to Zenith. "Thank you. I did not know how I was going to pay him."
     She looked at him, frowning. "It was not my doing," she said, and turned back to the water.
     She stood at the railing, where Drago could not see her, and wept. She felt so alone, and yet she felt more crowded than ever before. Trapped.
     WolfStar was so good! You enjoyed it, I know you did. Accept it, Zenith. You are me and I am you, and WolfStar is our future. There can be no other way.
     No. There must be another way.
     ,' have been reborn SunSoar so that WolfStar will never leave me. Our blood will sing to each other through an eternity of nights. Accept.
     No. No, I will not allow it.
     You have no choice.
     Worse still than that insistent voice was the distinct feeling of fire eating into the lining of her womb. New life. A magical daughter. Who? Who? Another Azhure? No. Another Azhure to birth another daughter to live out this hell all over again? No, no, no!
     What could she do? Zenith tried to keep her thoughts private, tried to think what to do, but it was no use. All she could see was WolfStar leering into her face, and all she could feel was the thrust of his body.
      They stumbled towards the forest, Drago with one arm about Zenith, now constantly mumbling to herself, the other wrapped about his sack.
     Drago didn't know what to do. Zenith obviously couldn't go much further - but where could he leave her? Who could he leave her with? Drago loved his sister, and was terrified for her, but he also knew that he was no help to her. She needed more powerful magic than his concern to evict this Niah creature.
     Besides, there was a compulsion growing within him. Get south. Get south fast.
     Where? Where? The Island of Mist and Memory? No. That didn't feel right.
     "Where? Where?" he muttered, tense with frustration and worry.
     "What?" Zenith whispered, rousing slightly. "What did you say?"
     "Nothing. Look, the forest is not far away. A few more minutes only."
     "The forest?" she said. "What forest?"
     Drago stopped and wrapped his arm more securely about her. "Minstrelsea. Remember? You wanted to come here."
     "I did?" She struggled a little against his arm, but did not have the strength to break free.
     "I'll find help," he said. But help against what? Niah? Or the shock of Wolf Star's rape?
     "No, no," Zenith whispered, again struggling feebly. "Not Minstrelsea. Not here… no… no… no…"
     "It won't hurt you, Zenith! Be still now, I can hardly hold you!"
     Here is where Niah died! Zenith wanted to scream at him, but her voice was no longer her own. Here is where she is strongest! Not here! Not -
     Yes, here, Zenith. Here is where you die, at last.
     She choked, and Drago stopped in alarm. "Zenith? Zenith?"
     But she was no longer responding, and Drago, sure now that the only way to help her was to somehow get her deep into the forest, hauled her onward.
     Minstrelsea loomed before them. There was no thin scattering of brush and seedling trees to blur the demarcation between plain and forest. Behind them and to the west lay leagues of rolling grass and grain land, while before them reared a wall of trees. The trees hummed, singing softly to themselves, and between their trunks peered the curious eyes of the strange, fey creatures that populated the forest.
     Drago could not help a shiver of apprehension as the trees loomed above him. He'd been in Minstrelsea only once or twice previously, although Zenith and Caelum had visited regularly.
     And Isfrael, of course, had come with Axis to meet with his mother Faraday.
     No wonder Isfrael was so strange, Drago thought feverishly, to have a doe as a mother.
     But even if Drago had hardly ever been here, and even if he no longer had the use of his Icarü powers, he knew those trees were far more than they appeared. Each one was a living entity capable of anger or of love. Combined as the forest, the trees could wipe out an army if they wished, or midwife the birth of a butterfly.
     He paused just before committing himself and his sister to the forest. Then, because he had nothing left to do, and nowhere else to go, he plunged into the trees as if he were running into a burning building.
     As so many others had before him, Drago stopped in utter amazement within five or six paces.
     Despite its forbidding aura, Minstrelsea was a pool of light and music. The trunks of the trees grew far apart, and sunlight filtered down through the green canopy at least a hundred paces above. Birds - strange birds - sang from the branches of the immense trees, and even stranger creatures gambolled about the glades, paths and in the rivulets that wound their way through the trees.
     Peaceful. It was peaceful. Drago dared to take a deep breath and let his shoulders relax for the first time in days.
     Even Zenith seemed to revive slightly, and Drago found he did not have to support so much of her weight.
      They began to walk slowly down the forest track, Drago lost amid the beauty of the forest, Zenith lost in (losing) the battle in her mind.
     This forest is so beautiful. I loved it when Azhure brought us here as a child.
     No, no, no, no…
     Look! There is a diamond-eyed bird! Remember how we loved to watch them flutter from branch to branch?
     No, no, no, no…
     You know where he is taking us, don't you, Zenith? My grove. Poor girl, soon it will be your burial ground, not mine.
     No, no, no, no…
     But Zenith was now very, very tired of saying "no". She thought it would be good to lie down. Rest a while. Perhaps just to let Niah have her way for a few days, a week at the most. Then, once she had rested…
     You go to sleep now, dear. You have been good. Go to sleep…
     And Zenith tottered along by Drago's side, losing the strength to maintain her grip on life.
     They walked for an hour or more, deep into the forest, Drago unaware of, and Zenith ignoring, the thousand fey eyes that watched their passing from the shadows.
     It was only when they approached a large grove that Zenith's head whipped up and she stopped, aware at last, her eyes wide. "No!"
     Drago turned wearily to her. "Zenith, we need to rest, and this grove has sunlit spaces we can warm ourselves in. Come on now, we're almost there."
     He pulled her forward.
     The instant they stepped into the grove, Zenith felt Niah lunge within her. She screamed in terror - Niah was too strong here! Ah! Stars! Niah was penetrating and invading her soul, tearing it apart, a rape more painful, more humiliating than WolfStar's invasion of her body.
     And she could do nothing to stop Niah - she was so powerful, so vigorous, so certain!
     "Zenith!" Drago tried to hold her, but she wrenched away from him, falling against a tree.
     "Zenith!" Again Drago reached for her, but recoiled in horror as his sister convulsed.
     Her hands beat frantically at her bare breasts where the cloak had fallen away, and she whimpered. "Help me! Oh, Stars, help me!" Her voice ended on a thin wail of terror.
     Drago tried to grab his sister to him, but she kept rolling out of his arms. What was going on?
     "Oh Gods, it hurts, it hurts!" Zenith's hands were now patting at her head, now her abdomen, now clasped about her shoulders. "Put it"out, please… put it out! It hurts!"
     Drago stared wildly about, desperate for help, taking in the large grove ringed by nine trees and covered in Moonwildflowers, Azhure's mark.
     A coldness overwhelmed him as he realised where they were. What had he done? He'd led Zenith right into Niah's Grove, the place where Azhure's mother had burned to death - when this site had once been the village of Smyrton - and the place where her body lay buried.
      "Oh Stars!" he cried. "What have I done?"
     Zenith no longer spoke or cried out, but her eyes and mouth were circles of horror reflecting the agony that the Niah within was visiting upon her.
     Suddenly Drago was very, very angry. Damn their parents into every eternity of unhappiness for visiting such pain on their children!
     He finally managed to grab Zenith to him, trying as best he could to give her some reassurance, trying to touch her mind, to break the horror that had consumed -was consuming - her.
     The sack fell to one side, but Drago ignored it. "Zenith," he murmured. "Zenith!"
     Zenith was no longer aware of him. She writhed and struggled, and was now gasping and choking so much that Drago thought she would, in truth, die.
     ,' wish Niah's soul would stay in its damned AfterLife! Drago thought, and then cursed aloud, panicked that he could do nothing to help Zenith.
     "'Tis no use getting so angry, my boy," said a voice firmly to one side. "It will not help your sister."
     Startled, Drago looked up, and Zenith almost rolled out of his grip. He managed to hold on to her, then continued to watch the other side of the grove warily. A peasant woman had stepped forth, rubbing her hands anxiously above her large belly. She was in her mid-thirties, with roughened skin and thick limbs. She was clean and well-kept, but she was dressed simply in a worsted dress and enveloping black apron, and her expression was that of a simpleton.
     "Who are you?" he snapped. "Stay away!" His arms tightened about Zenith.
     The woman ignored him and advanced a little more. Drago wondered if she was indeed dim-witted, or if she used that expression to mask more dangerous thoughts. Stars knew what mad creatures these woods contained! "Stay away! I -"
     "You need help, m'lad." And ignoring his angry expression she sank down on the other side of the still-writhing Zenith. "Tell me what's wrong with her."
     Drago had no intention of telling her. What? This peasant woman who at best knew how to curdle milk? No! He wasn't going to -
     The woman raised her eyes from Zenith and stared at Drago.
     Drago may have had no residual Icarü power himself, but he had lived his life among Enchanters and Gods, and he recognised power when he saw it.
     This woman's eyes blazed with it, although it was such power that Drago had never seen before.
     "It is the power of the Mother," the woman said, and now her voice had dropped its simple brogue and throbbed with power as well. "Come to help your sister, if it can. Now, be still."
     She dropped her eyes back to Zenith, and patted at her arm with one work-roughened hand.
     Suddenly Drago knew who this woman was; not only had his mother talked of her, but she was a legend among the Icarü and Avar. She was Goodwife Renkin, the peasant woman who had helped Faraday plant Minstrelsea, and the woman who also acted as a conduit for the voice and power of the Mother, the being who personified the power of the earth and nature. When Faraday had completed her planting, the Goodwife had wandered off into the forest, never to be seen again.
     Not by human eyes, anyway.
     Now here she was. Sitting before him, patting Zenith's arm and singing a trifling lullaby to her.
     Much good that was doing, Drago thought. He trusted no-one, and certainly not this odd woman before him now.
     "She is in great pain," the Goodwife said, her voice still carrying its power. "Why is that, older brother?" She raised her eyes back to Drago.
     He considered again if he should tell her or not, then found to his amazement that the words were flooding out of him. "She battles the reborn soul of Niah within her," he said. "It is a trouble she should not have to bear, for she is innocent of any wrongdoing."
     "Unlike you," the Goodwife observed.
     Drago's mouth twisted. "Have the tales of my misdeeds penetrated even this green haven?"
     "All know your story, Drago. You betrayed your brother for your own gain."
     "So I have been told," Drago said, angry beyond measure. "And to be perfectly frank with you, Goodwife, I wish I had been more successful at it! Maybe then I could have saved Zenith this pain!"
     Her head jerked up. "Do you still covet your brother's place?" she asked softly. "Would you like to sit the Throne of the Stars?"
     He stared at her, frightened, because suddenly that was what he wanted - very much. What would it have been like to have been born first? To have been born heir?
     "It is not good to covet your brother's place," the woman said, babbling again in peasantish brogue rather than the power of the Mother, and with her eyes focused on something other than Drago. "Is it, m'Lady?"
     Drago looked over his shoulder where the woman was gazing and froze.
     A doe stepped from the far side of the grove, her russet skin trembling with apprehension, her great, dark eyes flickering from the tableau before her to the forest. Drago was unsure whether she'd stay or flee.
     "Come, come, m'Lady," the woman said. "This child here needs your help. I find I can do little for her."
     Drago glanced at the woman. Not even with your power? he thought. But just then the doe took a hesitant step forward, and Drago's eyes flew back to her.
     Again he knew who this was. Faraday. Once Queen of Achar, now trapped in animal form.
     All of us betrayed in one way or another, Drago thought suddenly. All of us trapped in flesh we don't want.
     "Nay," the Goodwife said quietly before him, her brogue again gone. "This girlie before me is betrayed, surely, and Faraday has betrayal branded into her very bones, but you are a betrayer. It is what you were born to. You have sin branded into your bones."
     Appalled and hurt rather than angry, Drago stared at her. "No, no…"
     There was a quiet movement at his shoulder. The doe had crept up to them, and was now standing a pace away from the sack, staring at it.
     She was trembling almost uncontrollably. Slowly she raised her great eyes from the sack and stared at Drago.
     And he understood with that look that she knew what it contained.
     "The girlie," the Goodwife said gently to the doe. "She needs your help."
     For a heartbeat longer the doe continued to stare at Drago, then she broke the stare and edged about him to Zenith. She lowered her head and nuzzled the woman's face with her nose, then sank gracefully down at her head.
     Drago could not take his eyes from her. He had never seen the doe - Faraday - before. The tale of this woman was so legendary, so lovely, that even Drago had found himself touched by it.
     Particularly because Faraday had been so betrayed by his father, and yet still she had died for him.
     Drago could not imagine loving anyone that much. Was her agony worth it? Surely she must now regret her devotion to Axis. Surely?
     The doe raised her eyes from her contemplation of Zenith and stared briefly at Drago.
     It was only a brief look, but in that moment Drago saw something that took his breath away.
     As the doe had raised her head he had seen in the curve of the animal throat the grace of a beautiful woman's neck, and he had seen in the rough reddish hair of the doe's coat the gleam of tangled chestnut hair, and for an instant he had seen a tortured woman's soul behind the creature's dark eyes.
     The doe glanced once more at the sack, trembled, then bent her attention back to Zenith.
     She is losing her battle. She descends towards madness. This place is too Niah-strong for her already weakened and saddened state.
     The voice, so soft and gentle, whispered through Drago's mind, and he stifled a cry.
     "M'Lady?" the Goodwife said. "Isn't there something you can do? My herbs cannot mend this malady."
     How can I evict this presence that torments her so? The doe lowered her nose to Zenith's forehead. She fights, and it fights within her, and I can see no help, no solution.
     "WolfStar found her, and raped her," Drago put in suddenly, wanting them to know all the horror.
     "And what did you do as WolfStar raped her?" the Goodwife asked.
     "I… I did not know what was happening. She'd run from camp. I did not know until it was too late."
     The Goodwife lowered her eyes contemptuously.
     Was he to be blamed for all Tencendor's woes, Drago wondered, then turned to the doe.
     "Help her, please," he said, and extended a hand towards her.
     The doe flinched, and he dropped it.
     ,' can do nothing, she said.
     "I can do nothing," the Goodwife echoed.
     "But what can ,' do? I can't leave her here! I -"
     "Where do you go?" the Goodwife asked. "What sin do you plan next?"
     "I plan to save my own life!" Drago shouted. "Is that such a sin?"
     He took a huge breath, trying to bring his anger under control. "She wanted to go to the Island of Mist and Memory. To StarDrifter."
     StarDriftert "He said once… he said he would always be there to catch her."
     Ah. The doe tilted her head and considered Drago. Perhaps I can summon StarDrifter here. Zenith will never survive the trip to the Isle.
     Drago hesitated, then leaned down and touched Zenith's cheek a last time. He could do no more for her, and he knew that she was better left in the care of these two than struggling further south with him.
     "Take care of her, please." He let her weight fall into the arms of the Goodwife, picked up the sack, and stood up, retreating several paces.
     Where are you going?
     Where? Where? Drago didn't know. He retreated another pace, the sack clutched tight to his chest.
     Why that? the doe asked sadly.
     "I don't know," Drago muttered, staring at her. "I don't know."
     It has its own purpose.
     "It has no thought of its own!"
     It seeks… it seeks a home.
     "No!" Now Drago had reached the far edge of the grove.
     Take it back.
     "No!" Drago yelled one last time, staring frantically for a moment at Zenith, and then was gone.
     After his son defeated Gorgrael, StarDrifter had made his home on the Island of Mist and Memory. There he studied and dreamed, conducted the rites of Star worship, and was generally content. He lived on Temple Mount, establishing an academy for Icarü children with Enchanter powers, and teaching what he knew and what he'd come to understand. He had mellowed in the tranquillity of the island, and became more patient and serene, although StarDrifter did not fully realise this change in himself.
     He did not lack for company, either. Although the population of the Mount itself had not grown appreciably over the past years, the Icarü had built themselves a spreading town about the foot of the mountain. From there, they could rise on the jungle thermals to the peak to attend rites, or just to come and absorb the power that washed about the great Temple of the Stars.
     At first StarDrifter had visited his family in Sigholt once or twice a year, but as time had passed, and Axis and Azhure's children grew into adulthood, his visits had become more infrequent, sometimes once every two years, more often longer. Axis and Azhure came to him on Temple Mount now and then, but their visits had become rare since they had drifted more with their Star God companions; StarDrifter had not seen them in some three years.
     He missed them, but he missed his grandchildren more, and every few weeks guilt made him vow to himself to go to Sigholt this Yuletide. But he somehow knew that Yuletide would come and go, and his grandchildren would remain unseen. Caelum was now too busy ruling Tencendor to leave, RiverStar too self-absorbed, Isfrael and Zenith had their own lives, and Drago… well, Drago had so little in common with the other SunSoars that he was the last person StarDrifter expected to visit the island.
     All his grandchildren had spent time with StarDrifter when they were growing up. StarDrifter even missed Drago who, despite his outwardly sullen appearance, had a lively mind and had spent hours following StarDrifter about the complex, asking questions. StarDrifter missed them all… except RiverStar. He was glad she no longer came. StarDrifter had once promised himself that he would have Azhure's eldest daughter if he could not have Azhure, but RiverStar had herself crept into his bed when she was thirteen, her hands knowing and bold, and StarDrifter had been so repelled by the experience that he had lost any desire for her.
     StarDrifter was lonely, although he did not recognise it. He had let Rivkah go, and he had lost contact with his son and his grandchildren. Even FreeFall and his wife, EvenSong, StarDrifter's daughter, were too busy to attend to him.
     So this day he wandered the orchard above the Dome of the Stars, his wings fluttering out behind him, eyes half closed, his head lifted slightly to the sea breeze as it rushed over the cliffs, and he wondered why he felt so melancholy.
     It was a warm day, and yet StarDrifter found his flesh creeping with a strange chill. He opened his eyes fully, and stood still, looking about.
     There was something wrong.
     A knot of nervousness twisted about in his belly. He had not felt anything like this for years… many years. What was it?
     He turned about in a slow circle, his wings now half extended, ready for flight.
     StarDrifter…
     That voice! He knew it, but could not place it. Who?
     StarDrifter…
     Calling, calling to him. Worried, but so far away. Who?
     And then power hit him like a blast of turbulent wind. StarDrifter cried out, almost fell over, then managed to regain his balance. He looked about, not understanding. He was surrounded by vibrant, pulsing emerald light. So vibrant it lived, shadowing and shifting…
     "Stars," he whispered, and saw that one section of the emerald light was changing, reshaping so that it became a tunnel of swirling silver and emerald light, and at the end of this tunnel stood two women, one holding out her hand.
     One was a pleasant-faced woman in late middle-age, dark brown hair greying and coiled loosely about her head. She was dressed in a soft pale blue robe, belted about with a rainbow-striped band. From her came most of this power.
     The Mother. StarDrifter had never seen her personified, but he recognised her power from years of conducting joint rites with the Avar.
     The other woman was Faraday. StarDrifter could not believe it. When had he last seen her? At Axis' side in Carlon, smiling and cheerful, not yet knowing that Axis had betrayed her with Azhure.
     She held out her hand, and she smiled. "StarDrifter." Her voice came from very far away. "StarDrifter, I have need of you as you once had need of me. Will you aid me?"
     "Gladly," StarDrifter said without hesitation, and stepped into the spiralling tunnel.
     He spread his wings to the power, letting it carry him towards the two women. He felt earth and stars rush by him, knowing it carried him a great distance, and when it finally let him go and he stepped into Niah's Grove, he was not truly surprised.
     There waited before him a doe and a peasant woman. Like Drago before him, StarDrifter knew instantly who these two represented. But his eyes were caught by the twisting, moaning figure between them.
     "Zenith!" And with one great flap of his wings he was at their side, falling to his knees beside Zenith. "What's wrong? What's happened to her?"
     "Drago," the Goodwife began, and StarDrifter's head snapped up at the name of his grandson, "told us her body and mind is tormented by Niah's reborn soul. Zenith fights it."
     The Goodwife shrugged. "But m'Lady and I can do nothing for the poor sweet girl. The Niah-soul wins."
     Niah's reborn soul? Azhure had once shown Niah's letter to StarDrifter, and he knew what the Goodwife alluded to. Niah? In Zenith?
     He looked again at his granddaughter. She appeared unconscious, but was obviously in anguish. Her skin was pale and sweating, her muscles twitching, her breath jerking in her breast.
     And why was she naked under this cloak, and with the marks of some assault upon her?
     "The poor sweeting," the Goodwife said. "Not only does she battle the dead soul within her, but her body and spirit were raped by WolfStar -"
     StarDrifter gave a great cry and leapt to his feet. WolfStar! He had known that malevolent criminal would reappear some day. But to so harm Zenith? StarDrifter looked back at his granddaughter, and his stomach curdled in revulsion at the crime that had been visited upon her.
     "Zenith," he whispered, dropping to his knees before her again.
     We cannot reach her…
     "How did she come to be here?" StarDrifter asked harshly. "You said Drago was with her?"
     "Her brother came with her, but has run off -"
     What was going on here?
     Drago was running from something. Something wrong at Sigholt.
     "Drago was running from a misdeed, no doubt," the Goodwife put in, folding her hands over her belly and pursing her mouth, but the doe continued.
     Zenith was with him - we do not know why - and Drago left her with us, hoping we could help her.
     "And was he a party to her rape?" StarDrifter asked.
     "No, good sir, we do not think so," the Goodwife answered. "But neither did he help her."
     Stars, but he should never have left those children alone for so long! Why hadn't he visited?
     They are not children any more, StarDrifter. All capable of choosing their own paths.
     "Or fated," StarDrifter, his thoughts returning to what fought for control of Zenith's body and mind. Why Zenith? She had such a sweet and trusting nature -was that why she'd been chosen as a vessel for Niah's rebirth?
     Who was this on the ground before him? Had it always been Niah? Or was Zenith a separate entity? A different personality?
     StarDrifter shook his head slightly, hoping to clear it. "Why call me? What can I do?"
     Drago said that she wanted to go to you.
     StarDrifter frowned. "Why?"
     Because you once told Zenith that you would always be there to catch her.
     Except I wasn't, was I? StarDrifter thought. Should he take her? The island might be the worst place for Zenith if she was battling the reborn Niah.
     But he had little choice, and, more importantly, neither did Zenith.
     StarDrifter squatted down by his granddaughter and took her into his arms.
     Strangely, she quietened a little as soon as he had gathered her against his breast.
     "I'm here, Zenith," he whispered, and stroked her hair.
     Suddenly she stilled, her breathing eased, and her entire body relaxed.
     And yet her stillness did not ease StarDrifter's mind. Someone had won - but who?
     "I will take her to the Island of Mist and Memory," he said. "Pray to both earth and stars that I am doing the right thing."
     N:
     othing?" Caelum said. "Nothing?" Crest-Leader FeatherFlight BrightWing's expression did not change. "StarSon, we have sent scouts out to the feet of the Icescarp Alps, to the River Ichtar, and south as far as the Minaret Peaks. Nothing."
     Caelum sat down heavily at the table in the map-room.
     "Askam?" He did not even look at the prince, for he knew in his bones what the man would report.
     "Nothing, Caelum." Askam spread his hands helplessly. "The patrols could not have scoured the Urqhart Hills more thoroughly if they'd done it on their hands and knees."
     Caelum sifted through a pile of loose papers on the table. "And these… reports from Jervois Landing, Severin, most of the smaller hamlets between here and Carlon - even Gorkenfort! Nothing! No-one has seen him." Nor Zenith. Had WolfStar found her? Or was she hiding from their grandfather in some enchanted bolt-hole?
     "Curse it!" Caelum sent the papers scattering across the table. "Where is he? Where could he have gone?"
     Askam glanced at FeatherFlight. Caelum's nerves were strung as tight as a fishing line with a whale on its hook -and no wonder. Drago had disappeared completely. How? And how was it he'd managed to evade searchers that ranged from the strongest Enchanters to the ablest trackers?
     By rights Drago should not have been able to escape more than a league or two… if he had left Sigholt! Was someone aiding him? Who? Why?
     "He could have managed to get to Minstrelsea," Askam said slowly. "If he's in there…"
     Caelum looked up sharply. "Stars, Askam! I should have you as a full-time adviser. FeatherFlight! Send word to Isfrael that Drago may well be within his domain."
     FeatherFlight nodded, saluted, and left.
     Caelum settled back in his chair. "Drago will never escape the eyes and ears Isfrael can call to his command. Askam, I thank you again… will you stay a week or two longer? I have need of a sharp mind about me at the moment."
     "As you will, StarSon."
     Caelum grinned at him. "And yet you fidget as if the most practised whore awaited you in your bed… what is it?"
     Askam returned the smile. "Master Horrald has been waiting for me at weapons practice this past half an hour. By the time I get there he will have broiled up a nice temper."
     Caelum managed a laugh. Master Horrald was senior among the weapons masters at Sigholt - and not known for his sweet disposition. "Begone then, Askam, and ask Master Horrald not to cut you to ribbons, if only for my sake."
     Left alone in the map-room, Caelum leaned his head into his hand and sighed. This last week had been distressful, and his nights had been filled with unsettling dreams of hunts that ran through forest and stars alike, and of huntsmen who ran down men, not animals.
     It made him think for a moment… hunt. Could his mother's hounds…? No, Azhure had told him a long time ago that the hounds could never be set to hunt mortals.
     Caelum looked at his hands, twisting about the red-gold, diamond-encrusted ring on his right hand. It was not his father's ring - Axis still wore that - but an exact duplicate.
     And Axis had taught him how to use it properly.
     Enchanters wielded power by manipulating threads of the Star Dance, the music the stars made as they danced through the universe. For each purpose, a Song. For countless generations Icarü Enchanters had painstakingly discovered perhaps a thousand Songs they could weave from the Star Dance, but Orr the Ferryman had shown Axis that all an Enchanter needed to do was think of the purpose, and the diamonds on his ring would rearrange themselves to show him the particular Song to sing.
     "Show me a Song for scrying," he whispered, and after an instant's hesitation, the diamonds on his ring rearranged themselves into a new pattern.
     Caelum thought about the music his ring showed him. It would be a powerful Song, requiring him to manipulate a dangerous amount of the Star Dance, but he was powerful himself, and he could manage it.
     He ran the Song through his head, absorbing the power of the Star Dance that flooded him, and directed that power to his purpose.
     Instantly the room before him faded, and Caelum saw the plains of Ichtar stretching away to the west of Sigholt.
     "Find me Drago," he whispered, and the view altered.
     His vision swept north until it danced among the peaks of the Icescarp Alps, then east and south, skimming over the grey-green tops of the Avarinheim and Minstrelsea.
     Caelum felt giddy and nauseated with the amount of power he was being forced to wield, but was determined to see it through.
     "Drago," he whispered, and the vision changed, and now he swept over the spires of the Minaret Peaks, now over Tare, now over Carlon.
     "Drago!" he cried. "Find me Drago!"
     He felt his body lurch, as if it had abruptly changed direction, and he saw the tranquil shores of the Island of Mist and Memory - there was a presence there… Zenith! Aha - so that is where she'd gone. Good.
     But no Drago.
     Caelum wondered if the Song was as lost as he. In desperation, he cried out one last time, now using Drago's birth name, thinking the Song required that.
     "Find me DragonStar!"
     In the space of a heartbeat, the entire world altered… and Caelum panicked. Tencendor had disappeared. Now he was lost, lost in a black void, and in this void he could sense a presence so infinitely powerful that he understood he would die if it found him.
     "StarSon?" it whispered. "StarSon?"
     Caelum could feel it reaching out for him, rushing towards him as if it were a great wind.
     "StarSon!"
     "No," Caelum whispered.
     "You pitiful weakling, StarSon," the voice cried, and Caelum could feel the being rippling towards him. "Let me hunt you, let me impale you, let me violate your corpse, let me -"
     "No!" Caelum screamed, and with the last of his willpower broke his contact with the Star Dance.
     The Song ceased, and Caelum opened his eyes to the familiar surroundings of the map-room. His chest was heaving, his body covered in sweat, his hands trembling.
     "Stars," Caelum whispered into the room, "was that you, Drago?"
     That evening Caelum was visited by SpikeFeather TrueSong.
     He appeared from nowhere, perhaps the door, but Caelum was not sure. The chamber had been empty when Caelum went to close the shutters at the window, yet SpikeFeather had been there when he turned back to the room.
     "SpikeFeather!"
     Caelum was unnerved by the birdman's sudden appearance. SpikeFeather carried about him an aura of subtle power. Not Enchanter power, not anything any Enchanter had seen previously. Caelum assumed he'd absorbed it from Orr.
     "StarSon." SpikeFeather bowed his eye-catching red head. "Has there been any news of Drago?"
     "I am surprised that you have heard of such excitement secreted down in the waterways, SpikeFeather. Drago was still here, and RiverStar still alive, when you left to rejoin Orr."
     "The waterways reflect many things, StarSon. And some of them have concerned the problems of Sigholt."
     "You do not know Drago's whereabouts?"
      "No, StarSon, I do not."
     "But surely you could -"
     "There is nothing I can do, StarSon. Drago is not in the waterways - that is all I can tell you."
     Caelum sighed, and poured each of them a glass of wine. Stars knew he'd need it to sleep tonight. "Well, then, SpikeFeather. What news from the Star Gate?"
     In the consternation surrounding RiverStar's murder and Drago's escape over the past week, Caelum had pushed to one side the strange tidings of the whispers beyond the Star Gate.
     Now… now he wondered if they had anything to do with his frightening vision of this morning.
     SpikeFeather sat down in a chair and sipped at his wine. "They still whisper and call, but they have come no closer. They seem to be holding their distance. Orr is tense, but he has sounded no alarm. StarSon, I would venture to advise that WolfStar was right. They pose no danger save to the over-curious mind who would be tempted to plunge after them."
     "Through the Star Gate?" Caelum laughed incredulously - and a little too loudly. The Star Gate disconcerted him. He had seen his father, and numerous other Enchanters, stand at its rim, enthralled by the Star Dance and the universe it contained, but he always felt dizzy if he stayed there more than a moment.
      SpikeFeather watched him, then shrugged. "No doubt the issue of the children will become no more than a passing curiosity, StarSon."
     "I do hope you are right," Caelum said, and abruptly stood to pour himself some more wine. "I do hope so."
     He dreamed that night. He dreamed he was hunting through the forest. A great summer hunt, the entire court with him. His parents, laughing on their horses. His brother, Isfrael, and his sisters, even RiverStar. It was a glorious day, and they rode on the wind and on their power, and all the cares of the world and of Tencendor seemed very, very far away.
     But then the dream shifted, changed. They still hunted, but Caelum could no longer see his parents or his brother and sisters. The hounds ran, but he could no longer see them either. The forest gathered about him, suddenly threatening.
     And now even his horse had disappeared. He was running through the forest on foot, his breath tight in his chest, fear pounding through his veins.
     Behind him something coursed. Hounds, but not hounds. They whispered his name. Oh, Stars! There were hundreds of them! And they hunted him.
     They whispered his name. StarSon! StarSon!
     Caelum sobbed in fear. What was this forest? It was nothing that he had ever seen in Tencendor. He cut himself on twigs and shrubs, fell, and scrambled, panicking, to his feet.
     Something behind him… something… something deadly.
     Running.
     He heard feet pounding closer, he heard horns, and glad cries. They had cornered him!
     Caelum fell to the forest floor and cowered as deeply into the dirt and leaf litter as he could.
     But he couldn't resist one glimpse, and that one glimpse was enough to push him to the brink of insanity.
     A man, clad in enveloping dull black armour, rode a great dark horse. In his hand he wielded a massive sword. The horse reared to a halt before him and, as it did so, Caelum found breath for one final scream.
     "DragonStar!"
     Drago moved south through Minstrelsea, not really knowing where he was going, only driven by some urge to go south, south, south.
     During the day he crept within the shadows, avoiding the few Avar he heard coming down the forest paths, ignoring the brilliant birds and magical creatures that inhabited the forest.
     Ignoring all but one. Drago had become aware on the second day after leaving Niah's Grove that the red doe followed him.
     Damn her! Why follow him? Had she managed to contact StarDrifter? Was Zenith safe? The doe would not let him approach, so Drago had to continue on his way with his questions unanswered, trying his best to put her out of his mind, but wishing at every step that she would just leave him alone.
     The evenings he spent gathering what fruit and berries he could from shrubs, and digging for the tuber roots he knew formed the subsistence food of the Avar. But he found little. One day he managed to catch a fish in a stream, and had to eat that raw because he did not have the implements for making a fire.
     Its flesh was cold and slimy as it slid down his throat, and Drago choked and gagged, but forced it down. Disgusting as it was, Drago still preferred his current existence to the one he'd lived at Sigholt. Raw fish was surely better than lying in the corpse yard!
     In the evenings, when he huddled beneath the overhang of some great-leaved plant, or in the exposed roots of the massive trees, when he had nothing but his thoughts for company, Drago reflected on his life.
     It had been wasted thus far, he decided. He'd been kept trapped within the SunSoar family, trapped by their hatred and distrust, trapped by his reputation. He'd been allowed no role in the new Tencendor - and what role could he be given? Surely the black-hearted Drago would have only manipulated that role for his own gain and his brother's downfall!
     Drago's bitterness, always a small, hard canker in his heart, began to expand. He could have been an Icarü Enchanter, a SunSoar Enchanter, yet here he was, running through the forest, falsely condemned of murder so Caelum could finally have the excuse to do away with him.
     And so, late in the nights, Drago would hug his sack to him, and wonder if Caelum had missed it yet. And he would wonder further, how can I use this? How can I wield it? How…?
     He dreamed he was hunting through the forest. A great summer hunt, the entire court with him. His parents, laughing on their horses. His brothers, Caelum and Isfrael, and his sisters, even RiverStar. WolfStar was there, too, grinning maniacally as he strode beside the horses in his billowing black cloak. It was a glorious day, and they rode on the wind and on their power and all the cares of the world and of Tencendor seemed very, very far away.
     He shifted, uncomfortable, and the dream shifted with him.
     He dreamed he hunted, and he rode a great horse. In his hand he wielded a weapon, the likes of which Tencendor had never seen before - not even the Wolven bow compared in strength and enchantment with this.
     It combined the power of the stars with the power of the earth, and it sang as he swung it through the air.
     Hunt, his mind whispered through the forest, and the hunt intensified.
     His hounds - no, they were not hounds, they were something indefinably different - obeyed, and they put their noses… no… beaks … to the scent of the prey and they coursed and whispered and hunted.
     They obeyed his every command.
     Hunt! he cried again.
     They sped through the forest, the quarry before them. Drago felt triumph seethe through his veins - he hunted through the entire realm and all ran before him: his parents, Axis and Azhure, cowering golden and scared; his brother Caelum, hiding at their backs; even Goodwife Renkin; and there was WolfStar, cursed WolfStar, his eyes widening in horror as he was cornered by… by…
     Drago woke, shaking and sweating. What was it that he hunted with? Their names and the very concept of them lurked just out of reach. He should know, he should, but he didn't, and Drago almost cried with the frustration of it.
     He shifted more comfortably against the tree and drifted back to sleep, and while his sleep was troubled by dreams, they were dreams of Zenith and his childhood, and no more did he ride to the hunt that night.
     The further south he moved, the more vivid grew the dreams of the hunt. Drago did not fear the dreams; rather, he found them intriguing. What were they telling him…
     that he should hunt down those who hunted him? At that thought Drago would invariably smile, or even laugh. He was not entirely sure the combined forces of Tencendor would cower to the ground in fear if he appeared, waving his sack over his head!
     Nevertheless, Drago found he spent the days longing for the nights, longing for the dream where for once he was the one to hunt, he was the one with the power, he was the one who said, "Yes, you shall live, and, yes, you shall die."
     And, although Drago often killed in these dreams, he never saw who it was he killed.
      Sometimes Drago came close to tears as he stumbled along the paths of Minstrelsea. He thought of all he had lost. He had, apparently, been one of the most powerful Enchanters ever birthed - even WolfStar had said so. His name, DragonStar, had reflected that power. And yet his future had been destroyed so early.
     But his mother hadn't actually destroyed his power, had she? She'd only reversed his blood order so that his human blood was dominant - except for Isfrael, all SunSoar children carried equal amounts of Icarü and human blood. That meant that somewhere within him still existed the Icarü Enchanter potential.
     The day that Drago realised this his footsteps had dragged to a halt and he stood, thinking. Drago had thought he'd accepted his lot in life years ago… but now he was not so sure. What if he could retrieve his heritage, his potential?
     What would it be like to live the life of an Icarü Enchanter?
     As the dreams grew stronger, so the beasts that hunted for him grew more substantial in his mind, and so Drago's thoughts about regaining his Icarü power grew ever more dominant.
     One night, tired, hungry, and cold, he curled about the sack and wished himself into dream.
     He hunted, the horse striding powerfully beneath him. Before him ranged… ranged… Drago twisted and moaned. They were so close, he could almost see them. They hunted, they obeyed his every wish, and they were…
     Hawks.
     Drago relaxed in his sleep, and smiled. Yes, that was it. They were not hounds at all, but they were hunting falcons, hawks.
     Enchanted hawks.
     Whispering. Whispering… revenge.
     Drago woke into a clear-eyed clarity. He knew who these hawks were now. It was so obvious. So right. He should have realised days ago.
     They were the children whom WolfStar had cast into the Star Gate. Roaming the interstellar wastes, crying out for revenge.
     Looking for someone to direct them.
     Was he that someone? Drago lay there and considered the matter. They were so much like him. Condemned to death before they'd had a chance to live. Condemned by WolfStar. And the more that Drago thought about it, the more he wondered if WolfStar had constructed the vision of RiverStar's murder that had condemned him.
     WolfStar - they could all hunt WolfStar.
     All the children needed was someone to bring them back through the Star Gate.
     All they needed was a leader. Someone to direct them on the hunt.
     Drago's mouth curled. Back through the Star Gate? He would die the instant he stepped through.
     Maybe, but somewhere deep inside him was the blood of DragonStar, and maybe that would protect him.
     Maybe once he stepped through the Star Gate, Azhure's curse would shatter and his blood order would be righted. He would regain his heritage!
     "And this will surely protect me!" Drago said, his hands opening and closing about the object within the sack.
     His eyes were alive with hope. He would get his revenge, and these hawks would be the ones to accomplish it for him.
     Drago did not realise that what he guarded so jealously in the sack was manipulating his mind. It desperately wanted to get through the Star Gate, and it wanted Drago to go through as well. To this end it had been veiling Drago from the eyes of the farflight scouts for weeks, and over the past days had been speeding his feet along enchanted paths deep within the forest. Drago was moving faster than any human or Icarü had a right to move.
     Drago did not know it, but he was being guided by a power far older and stranger than Icarü magic.
     Behind Drago, day after day, trailed the red doe, pulled as much by the object in the sack as she was by worry about what Drago was doing.
     She had been instrumental in its creation, and it had witnessed her death.
     And, wrapped about its head, were still the remnants of the gown she had been wearing the day when Gorgrael had torn her apart.
     So she trailed after Drago, fretting, not knowing what to do, who to tell, if to tell, wondering what he was doing, where he was going.
     Pulled by the Rainbow Sceptre.
     StarDrifter had laid Zenith on the bed in the spare chamber in the priestesses' quarters on Temple Mount, and then sat and waited. Zenith slept for two nights and three days. For most of that time she sweated and tossed, attended only by two of the priestesses and StarDrifter himself, but on the third day she calmed and slept soundly.
     That evening she woke.
     StarDrifter sat forward and took her hand. "Zenith?"
     Her eyes fluttered, then opened, and she smiled at him. "You must be StarDrifter."
     Something very cold and nauseating coiled about his belly. "Zenith?" he said, more hesitatingly this time.
     "If you like," the woman who looked like Zenith said, and sat up in bed.
     Automatically StarDrifter's hand reached to help her, but he pulled it back before he touched her.
     "Where am I?" she asked.
     "In the priestesses' quarters on Temple Mount."
     Her entire face lit up. "I'm home! Oh, StarDrifter, I'm home!"
     He tried to smile for her, but couldn't. This had been Niah's home, not… "You are not Zenith."
     She eased by the bed and walked a little unsteadily to the window. "Look! There are the lavender gardens. Oh, StarDrifter, I have dreamed of being able to walk through those lavender gardens again!"
     She turned back to face the Enchanter, and almost overbalanced as her wings caught against the windowsill. "Oh! I shall have to get used to these."
     "You are Niah," StarDrifter said tonelessly. Somewhere a great anger was building, but at whom or what he did not know.
     She paused in her inspection of her wings, and sent him a sweet smile. "StarDrifter, I know this must seem strange. Here I am, in what you perceive as your granddaughter's body. But," she walked over and knelt before him, taking his hands in hers, "I have always been here. What Zenith loved was because I had loved it first. Her dreams were but borrowings of mine. Her words and laughter were generated by my soul. Her -"
     "I understand!" StarDrifter said, and pulled his hands from hers. He was angry at her, he realised. At Niah, not Zenith. But had Zenith ever existed?
     "StarDrifter, do not mourn Zenith," the woman said gently. "She was but a shell waiting to acknowledge me."
     StarDrifter's anger threatened to break forth, and he averted his eyes from the woman. "What am I to call you?"
     "Call me… Niah. My death at Hagen's hands was but an interruption in my life. Niah is my name. And," her hands spread over her belly and a smile lit her face, "I am pregnant with Wolf Star's child again. I am blessed."
     StarDrifter stared at her. "He raped Zenith. How can you-"
     "No," Niah said, and now her eyes were hard and determined. "No. Only Zenith perceived that as rape. I did not. WolfStar lay with me with my full consent and encouragement."
     "Then you raped Zenith as much as WolfStar did!" StarDrifter shouted and stalked over to the door.
     "Zenith was dying even then," Niah said. "If she felt pain, it was for her own death."
     StarDrifter slammed the door behind him.
     He walked to the southern cliffs of the Mount and stared at the wild seas beyond.
     Was she right? Had Zenith never existed?
     No, he could not believe that. He might not have seen Zenith much in recent years, but he'd known her well as a child and teenager. The Niah woman waiting back in that room had shown expressions and emotions that StarDrifter had never seen cross Zenith's face. No, there had been a Zenith. A different woman to the one who now used her body.
     Which meant that, if she hadn't been completely destroyed, Zenith was still alive somewhere.
     Trapped. Lost.
     StarDrifter felt two emotions coursing through him. One, a desperate need to help Zenith. But the second was far more destructive. StarDrifter needed someone to blame.
     WolfStar, certainly, for it was his machinations that had seen Zenith possessed by the spirit of the dead Niah. But in a vague and as yet undefined way, StarDrifter also blamed Azhure. Azhure had bred this trouble - but hadn't Azhure been bred by WolfStar and Niah?
     StarDrifter stood at the lip of the cliffs and wondered what he could do.
     After a while he realised he was crying.
     The wind blew cold at Leagh's back, and the last of the Skelder birds had flown overhead two days ago. Now there was nothing but high grey cloud scudding above her, the thin sunlight shimmering on the weapons of the men who surrounded her, and the man who had lied to her by her side night and day.
     He'd told her that he, Herme and Theod were making a point.
     If Leagh wasn't so heartsick she would have smiled at that. Did Zared call seizing a castle "making a point"? What was he doing? Surely this would end in war?
     She didn't understand his reasoning, and didn't understand his own sense of betrayal at the new taxes imposed by Caelum. And Leagh certainly didn't understand what Herme and Theod - and some eight thousand of their men - were doing here, either.
     But most of all Leagh did not understand how Zared could have lied to her. "Come to Severin and be my wife," he had said, and then pulled her into his bed.
     But they weren't travelling to Severin at all, they never had been, and she was not sure when they would happen across a public notary who could legalise her shame.
     I feel like an army whore, she thought, keeping her face expressionless and her eyes dead ahead, travelling with a man who throws me apples in return for the use of my body.
     Except that her body was worth a trifle more than that of the average army whore, wasn't it? Did he love her, or did he love the inheritance implanted in her womb?
     For three days they had ridden south-west from the small valley where Zared had led her to view his… his army. There was no other word for it. It had been a military march, no comforts, no quarter given. They'd camped at night under the hard stars on equally hard ground, and the only reason she consented to lie wrapped in Zared's blankets was for the added warmth his body gave her.
     At least that's what she told herself.
     They'd risen each day before dawn, broken their fast on dry bread, warmed gruel and tea, and then mounted and ridden until mid-morning, when Zared had ordered an hour's halt. Then on to mid-afternoon, when they'd halt again, then ride until the stars came out and it was time to make yet another cheerless camp.
     At least Leagh had been cheerless, but the men about her had seemed remarkably high-spirited.
     What is it about war that makes men smile so? she asked herself each evening about the camp fire. What is it about war that causes men to lust so?
     She could find no answer.
     Now they were approaching the Azle again after its great sweep west, and here they would have to cross into Aldeni. From there, Leagh supposed, they would ride due south and then east until they reached Kastaleon.
     It was noon, and Zared decided they could accomplish the fording before dark. And then a day's rest the other side, he said, for this crossing would tax men and beasts.
     At this point the Azle was still wide, but its waters had deepened and were muddy and turbulent. Leagh sat her mare to one side as Zared had waved the majority of his men across - and with Herme's and Theod's men that must have amounted to at least fourteen thousand.
     They struggled across slowly. Occasionally a horse and its rider would slip and be cast into the muddy waters. Both would disappear, then reappear twenty or thirty paces downstream, battling the current, battling for their lives.
     All of those who fell managed to achieve the other bank - eventually.
     All this Leagh sat and watched impassively, hunching further inside her cloak as the northerly wind grew sharper, wondering if even the Azle conspired against Askam.
     Zared broke her reverie eventually, riding up to her and pushing the hood back from her face so he could see her eyes.
     "Leagh? We will wait the night this side of the river. It is too late now to try and cross, and the river will be quieter in the morning."
     She tightened her hands about the reins, and booted her mare viciously in the flanks. "No!" she cried as the mare bolted for the river. "I will go now!"
     Even as the horse plunged into the icy water Leagh was wondering why she'd done such a stupid thing. It was her way, she supposed, of hurting him when he'd hurt her so badly.
     "Leagh!" she heard him scream, and then she had no thought for anything else but the swirling, hungry river.
     The horse sank to her belly almost immediately, half swimming, half plunging. Leagh was soaked to her waist as waves smashed against them. Gods! Why so strong this time of the year?
     The mare struggled and snorted, plunging gamely forward, her neck outstretched, her eyes rolling, seeking the far bank.
     They had fought perhaps halfway across when the riverbed fell away beneath them and both horse and rider were instantly submerged. Leagh felt herself being swept away from the mare and, her eyes tightly shut underwater, she struck out with a hand, grabbing a handful of mane.
     The next instant both surfaced, spluttering, instinctively striking out. Leagh kept a firm grip on the horse, knowing that if she were swept away from the mare's strength she wouldn't be able to survive for long.
     Was that Zared shouting? Or her imagination? Leagh could vaguely see men lining the far bank, but her eyes were blurred with the water and the cold and her own fear, and she did not know if they could help her.
     She became aware that her grip on the horse's mane was slipping, and so she tried to wrap her fingers more securely, but they were cold, so cold, and they only fumbled ineffectively. Dimly Leagh was aware that she was sliding down the mare's body. She grabbed at the reins, and missed. She grabbed at the stirrup leather as it floated past her face, and missed. Her hands slid along the mare's rump until they finally tangled in the horse's tail, and she hung on with all her might.
     Leagh might have made the far bank safely at that point, save that the mare, in her panic, kicked out, and one of her hind hooves struck Leagh in the rib cage.
     Shocked by the blow, and then the flaring pain which made it impossible for her to breathe, Leagh let go, and was swept away by the waters.
     Over and over she tumbled, the cold now as devastating and cruel as the waters, and Leagh -somewhere in a part of her mind that was still functioning - knew she was dying.
     In her own way, she was happy. Better she die here than betray her brother and Caelum.
     But then something grasped her hair, and then her waist. She tried to cry out, for whoever had her was paining her bruised ribs, but she choked instead, and that was so loathsome that she began to struggle… struggle against the man who held her and against the water that was trying to kill her.
     Suddenly her head was out of the water and she heaved in a huge breath, then gagged as she coughed up gouts of muddy water. The man who had her now had found his feet, and was dragging her through waist-deep water, cursing with each step that she only hung limply on his arm, and then other hands had her, stretched her out on grass, and then rolled her onto her stomach and were pounding her back in an effort to make her cough up as much water as possible.
     "Leagh?"
     It was Zared's voice, and Leagh rolled over weakly. He was on his knees beside her, as soaked as she, and the wetness running down his cheeks was not all due to the Azle.
     "Do you want to die that badly?" he asked, his voice hoarse, and she shook her head slightly.
     "No," she whispered, and realised that she meant it.
     That night the army camped a half-hour's ride south of the river, next to four or five small hills. Nestling among these hills was a shepherd's summer hut, deserted now, and there Zared carried Leagh to spend the night.
     He dismissed those concerned men who hovered about, laying Leagh on a rough bed by one wall. Then he built a fire in the hearth, and set some food and wine to warm.
     And then he came over to her, not talking, and stripped both her and himself of their wet clothes.
     She protested, for the air was chill, but Zared took no notice, and once they were both naked he led her to the fire and rubbed them down with a blanket one of the men had left.
     "Gods," he muttered as his fingers traced the bruise left by the mare's hoof, but found the ribs themselves relatively undamaged. To her shame, he then conducted a careful examination of her body, looking for other hurts, until he was satisfied that the bruise on her ribs was the extent of it.
     He turned her round to face him, and cupped her face in his hands.
     "Leagh, were you trying to hurt me by doing that? If so, then you succeeded. I thought you were dead."
     She tried to drop her eyes, but Zared lifted her head so he could meet them. "Leagh, were you trying to hurt -"
     "You lied to me!" she spat. "You have hurt me ten times more than I you!"
     He winced. "I simply did not tell you my plans to -"
     "You said we would ride to Severin and marry! Instead you drag me about with your army like a harlot!"
     "I intend to marry you, Leagh! I -"
     "And what is it makes you sure I still consent to marry you?" she said softly, and wrenched out of his hands.
     To her anger, he roared with laughter. "Leagh! Look at us! Here we stand companionably naked, and after a week of sharing a bed and a passion. Do you think you have any choice?"
     "If I say my shame was the product of rape," she said, pronouncing every word clearly, "then I would have every choice. My honour would be restored, yours tarnished. I would still have my choice of husband -"
     "Even with your belly swelling with my child?"
     "If it swells. And after the shock of that river crossing I have no doubt that I will lose any child conceived to this point. Any child conceived after this point can still be -"
     "No! Leagh, I cannot believe you say this! Damn it, we love each other! How can you stand there and talk so calmly of ridding yourself of our child?"
     "Because I doubt that you do indeed love me, Zared. Now I wonder if it is my lands you lust after more."
     "How dare you say that to me?" he roared, and then cursed himself as he saw her flinch. He reached out for her, hugging her stiff body to his. "Leagh, I am sorry… but I could not believe you said that. Listen to me, as soon as I can find a notary we will marry."
     She did not reply, and Zared rubbed his hands over her body, trying to arouse her. "Leagh, I know you enjoy my touch… why deny that?"
     Again she did not answer.
     "Leagh…" he murmured, kissing her hair, her cheek, her neck. "Be my wife. Do not punish me for the actions I have been forced to take to wive you. Did I not say that I would fight for you? Well, if I march at the head of an army now it is only for love of you. It was the only way I knew I could have you."
     Leagh began to weaken, confused. Was that right? Was this all just for her? To convince Caelum to approve their marriage?
     Or was there something else?
     She murmured, trying to pull away from him, but again, as on their first night, he was too strong, and he pulled her down to the floor before the fire.
     As he made love to her, Leagh thought she would choose to believe him. He had been rash and foolhardy, but he did love her, didn't he? And perhaps over the next few days she could gently persuade him to forget his crazed idea of taking Kastaleon and march back north. They could quietly marry in Severin, and there they would weather Caelum's certain anger.
     Yes, she would persuade him to return to Severin. Once they were there, both Caelum and Askam would accept the inevitable.
     The Ancient Barrows Drago moved faster now that he knew where he needed to go. Sometimes he took food from an Avar camp. Not much, just whatever he needed to feed himself for a day or two. No-one ever spotted him -he moved like a night-shadow itself - and if it hadn't been for the doe following him, Drago believed he would have passed through Minstrelsea completely unnoticed.
     The doe, Faraday, still worried him. He rarely saw her, but occasionally he heard a faint footfall behind him, or the rustle of a shrub as she passed. Two or three times he tried to shoo her away, and when he did that she disappeared for a while, but the next day he would again become aware of her presence.
     He was still worried about Zenith, partly because the doe remained behind him. Was Zenith well… or consumed? He'd hated to leave her like that, but he hadn't the skills to help her, and just maybe StarDrifter or the priestesses on the island did.
     Drago hoped StarDrifter would indeed be there to catch Zenith.
     But if thoughts of the doe and Zenith ate at him, his dreams comforted him. Night after night he rode to the hunt, riding his great horse, the hawks to the side and ahead of him, and they sometimes slithered along the ground, sometimes flew through the air, but they always found their quarry. Drago grew to anticipate the final confrontation with his always nameless and faceless quarry. It would cower on the ground before him, and he would raise his sword, and plunge it down, and always at that point he would wake with an almost orgasmic ecstasy consuming him. He would lie awake for perhaps an hour, reliving every part of the hunt, remembering the thrill as the sword pierced the heart of his quarry, the ecstasy of its death.
     And so he moved south.
     It should have taken him many weeks, maybe even months, to reach his destination, but Drago found himself spotting landmarks that astounded him with the speed of their appearance. The Minaret Peaks (those he skirted as best he could, avoiding the tens of thousands of Icarü that thronged there), then the trading city of Arcen, just beyond the forest's western border.
     Drago had no idea why he was moving so fast - or why the Avar or Isfrael hadn't confronted him yet.
      Perhaps Caelum had decided to let him go. Drago's mouth quirked at that particular thought. "Caelum would be more likely to make love to Gorgrael's corpse," he muttered, grinning, "than let me pass unhindered."
     Maybe his power wasn't trapped so deep, after all. Or perhaps his powers were resurfacing the further he moved from his family?
     Drago shrugged. It didn't matter, he was free, he had a purpose, and here on these green trails no-one spat at him.
     Always the Sceptre rode under his arm, safe in its sack.
     And so, finally, some three weeks after he had fled Sigholt, Drago approached the Ancient Barrows. Here was where the ancient Enchanter-Talons had been buried so they could make their eventual way down to the Star Gate which existed beneath the tombs. Each barrow was an entranceway into the Star Gate itself, but Drago knew there were other passages secreted about these parts, passages more accessible than trying to dig down into one of the huge Barrows.
     But where? And how well were they guarded?
     Although Drago knew of the Star Gate, and had heard it described countless times, he had never seen it himself. Only Icarü Enchanters were allowed near its lip to reap the rewards of gazing into its depths. Drago had been kept well away.
     But if Drago had not actually seen the Star Gate, nor knew the exact location of its entrances, then he'd heard rumours, and he'd heard Caelum and other Enchanters talking from time to time. And Zenith had occasionally chatted to him about the times she'd been down.
     No, he could find it, but not tonight. Drago glanced at the faint stars twinkling through the forest canopy. Fifty paces before him the forest ended, for Faraday had planted around the Ancient Barrows to leave them easily accessible, but Drago ignored the call of the open spaces and crawled deeper back into the forest.
     The lure of the dream beckoned.
     The lure of the hunt.
     Unknown to Drago, the doe curled up beside him as he slept, as she had curled up every night for the past week. She shared some of the dream, and shook, for she had good reason to fear the hunt.
     But at least this time she was not the quarry.
     She garnered from the man's dreams some of the memories that embittered him, and she sorrowed. This man was Axis and Azhure's child, and she loved both of .
     them. Azhure as a beloved sister, Axis as… well, as a former lover. No longer did she harbour a passion for him, but he was a dear man to her and he and his concerned her.
     Even if she rarely saw Axis or Azhure any more.
     She knew why. They, like her, now travelled their own magical existence, and they rarely came back to the forest to see her. Azhure had once often come, but it had now been many seasons since Faraday had seen her. True, sometimes all the Star Gods came to dance in Niah's Grove, but Faraday did not approach on those occasions.
     This man was their son. Faraday remembered that Azhure had been pregnant with Drago and RiverStar when Faraday had first met her. Even then Faraday had an inkling of the trouble these two babes would cause, and she'd later heard of Drago's crime against his brother.
     And here he was, running through the forest, blind to its beauties, and with the Rainbow Sceptre clasped beneath his arm.
     That troubled Faraday. Axis had used the Rainbow Sceptre to kill Gorgrael -
     but not to save her - and had then secreted it within Sigholt, intending to study it at more leisure one day. Faraday nuzzled the sack, dreaming and remembering. The five Sentinels, Jack and Zeherah, the seductive Yr, and the irrepressible brothers Ogden and Veremund, had stolen the virulent, strangely corrupting power from the hidden Repositories beneath the waters of the Sacred Lakes to create this Sceptre. They had also given their lives. Faraday recalled that when Axis had wielded the Sceptre, she'd heard echoes of the Sentinels' laughter in its flaring light - were their spirits still embedded in the Sceptre?
     The thought gave Faraday some comfort, but then she tensed as the man moved.
     She relaxed slowly - he was only moving deeper into his dream. Running through the forest, hunting, setting… his hawks? What were they? Setting his hawks to the quarry.
     What was Drago doing with the Sceptre? Why had he taken it?
      Should she do something? Tell someone?
     But Faraday let the thought slip' away. She so rarely spoke to anyone now. Even the once-constant shadow of the White Stag had faded; at the moment he ran the very upper reaches of the forests in the Avarinheim.
     And as for Isfrael… the precious hours she'd spent with her child each year in Niah's Grove had been too few, and Isfrael had bonded to the Avar rather than her. Now she believed he barely even thought of her let alone sought her out.
     Faraday's thoughts these days were generally vague. Deer-like. She thought about the trails and she thought about the choicest spots to nibble sweet grass and plump berries, but that was largely it. Until Drago had dragged Zenith into Niah's Grove, for months Faraday's thoughts hadn't been directed to anything more than the next grazing spot.
     She thought briefly of contacting Axis or Azhure about the Rainbow Sceptre, then let the thought drift away. She snuggled a little closer to the man, appreciating his warmth, and watched as he dreamed.
     As he raised his sword to deal the death blow to his quarry, she rose and melted into the shadows.
     Drago started out of his dream, breathing heavily, and clutching the Sceptre to himself. He smiled slowly, remembering the satisfaction of his sword driving home to smash bone and cleave heart.
     He could almost empathise with his father for spending so long at war. Was this how Axis had felt when he'd driven the Rainbow Sceptre into Gorgrael's heart?
     He lay for a while, then decided he may as well get up and make an early start. He finished the last of the malfari bread he had taken from an Avar encampment two nights previously, then stood up, brushing leaves from his cloak.
     For a moment he stood there in the dim light, one hand scratching at his cheeks and chin. He had not washed or changed in weeks, and his face was thick with a new growth of beard.
     But would any of that matter beyond the Star Gate?
     No. Nothing would matter beyond the Star Gate save that he find the means to regain his heritage.
     When I have refound my enchantments, he thought, I shall create for myself an image to suit my potential.
     He grinned, and laughed at his vanity, and then he set off to look for a way down to the Star Gate.
     In the end the entranceway to one of the tombs was not too difficult to find. There was a small encampment of Icarü within the Ancient Barrows, and Drago simply waited until he spotted two of them wing their way to a spot about two hundred paces to the south of the Barrows themselves.
     Drago took his time approaching the spot where they'd landed. Not only did he have to travel on foot, but he had to keep to the edges of the forest as much as he could. Even that proved impossible as the Minstrelsea only extended some hundred and fifty paces south of the Barrows, and he had to cover the last fifty paces virtually crawling on his belly through the thick, knee-high grasses of the Tarantaise plains.
     Every three or four paces he glanced at the sky, anxiously scanning for Icarü above.
     But again luck was with Drago, and he managed to approach the entranceway to the passage without detection. There was a small mound of dirt, perhaps half as high again as a man, and below that was a black hole. From his hiding spot some fifteen paces from the entrance Drago could see a smooth-floored passageway extending down, torches flickering in its depths.