Chapter 26

A Gloomy and Pain-Raddled

Night

She did not know exactly why she had come here, but she thought it was because she needed to put an end to it. If she could do that, then perhaps she could move on with the rest of her life.

And maybe she could come to terms with StarDrifter.

"First things first," Zenith muttered as she lifted a hand, clenched and unclenched it to try and control its unwelcome trembling, then grasped the door handle before her.

It did not budge, and Zenith took that as a sign from the stars that she should not be here. She heaved a sigh of relief, let the handle go, and turned away.

"My Lady Zenith?" a polite voice inquired behind her.

Zenith's throat went suddenly, horribly dry, and she turned her head back to the door.

It was open now, and a birdman, one of the Lake Guard, stood there.

"My Lady?" he repeated, ever polite and deferential.

"I, ah, I wondered if I might, ah, see ..."

"Yes?"

"I wondered if I might spend a few minutes with Wolf Star."

There. The words were out. The action had been stated, even if the motives remained horrifyingly unclear.

"You want to see WolfStar? My Lord Axis has left very clear instructions that —"

"Surely they do not pertain to me?" Zenith said. "His daughter? Besides, I have heard that WolfStar is seriously ill, and I

thought —" What could she say? Everyone knew she was no Healer! "— that I might sit with him for a while, perhaps while he sleeps, and give the Healers some respite."

The guardsman hesitated, and glanced at someone over his shoulder.

Then he looked back at Zenith, nodded, and opened the door wide. "Please enter, my Lady."

Zenith clenched her hands amid her skirts, and walked in, carefully folding her wings so that they touched neither door frame nor guard.

She entered a small chamber. There were several chairs and stools scattered about, a chest, a table, and a wooden crate packed with bottles of unguents and herbal potions.

In the far wall was a closed door.

WingRidge CurlClaw sat on one of the stools, leaning back against the wall, his arms folded, his eyes steady as they gazed at her.

"What do you here, Zenith? I would have thought that you would be the last person to offer her services to WolfStar."

Zenith smiled, bright and artificial. She spread her arms wide and waggled her fingers. "Look! No knives!"

WingRidge continued to gaze at her. He did not smile.

Zenith's own face lost its feigned humour, and she let her arms fall to her sides. "WingRidge ...

please."

"Why?" He had not unfolded his arms, and his eyes were keener than ever.

"To put an end to it," she said. "I need to put an end to it."

WingRidge continued to stare a heartbeat longer, then he nodded and stood up. He stepped forward and gave Zenith a brief but warm hug. "I understand. He is asleep at the moment, but sleeps only lightly. You can wake him or not, as it pleases you."

"Is there anyone else in there?" Zenith eyed the door nervously.

"A Healer. Do you want me to ask her to leave?"

Zenith ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, then she jerked her head in a nod.

WingRidge looked at her. "I will be out here if you need me."

Zenith nodded, unable to speak, her eyes full of unshed tears.

WingRidge opened the door, and motioned the Healer out.

It was cool and dim inside, and Zenith jumped when WingRidge clicked the door closed behind her.

Had it woken WolfStar?

No...

There was no movement, and only the sound of slow, deep breathing from a bed placed close to the far wall.

The room reeked with the stench of infection.

Gods, Zenith thought, how ill is he?

She took a step forward, and then another when the sound of the breathing did not alter, and then jerked her eyes about the room, orientating herself.

A fireplace in the wall to her left, the fire damped down to the glow of coals.

A table pushed against the same wall, laden with bowls, bandages and several bottles of soap and unguents.

A pressed metal lamp hanging from a hook in the ceiling, exuding only the faintest of glimmers through the holes punched in its metal sides.

It sent strange, wobbling, hunching shadows chasing each other about the room.

A stool sat by the foot of the bed, another sat against the otherwise bare wall on her right.

And there was the bed itself, clad in snowy linens, patchwork quilts flung over its foot railing.

A form lay sprawled across the bed.

It was pale naked in the dim light, save for a towel draped over its hips, and the odd patch of bandage. Its wings, a pale bronze in this light, falling over both edges of the bed and spilling over the floor.

Arms: one flung so that it extended stiff and rigid, the other curled over the sleeper's face.

WolfStar.

Zenith stood a very long time, terrified to even move should she wake him.

What she wanted was for WingRidge to miraculously realise that she wanted to leave (now, now, now] and open the door and pull her out before WolfStar could wake to his senses and realise she'd been here.

But the room remained still and silent, save for the sound of WolfStar's breathing and Zenith's thudding heart.

The fire crackled (traitor fire!) and WolfStar stirred.

Zenith gasped, and WolfStar's arm lifted from his face. "Who is there?"

Zenith opened her mouth, but could not speak. One hand she had clenched in the material of her robe over her breast; the other was lost somewhere among the folds of material about her thigh.

WolfStar opened his eyes, and blinked. "Niah?"

"No! No!"

WolfStar stirred further, and half-raised himself on an elbow. He groaned, and lowered his face as he fought the pain.

"No," he finally said, his voice low and riddled with the agony coursing through his body. "It is not Niah at all, is it? You are Zenith."

She did not speak.

"Why are you here?"

Still she did not speak.

WolfStar raised his face and stared at her. "Girl, if there is one thing that I know about you, it is that you do not lack courage. Why are you here?"

"I do not know."

His mouth twisted. "Come to crow delight at my downfall, perhaps?"

She shook her head.

"No? Then I cannot think what else. I can scarce think that you have come to pass pleasantries with me."

He paused, and looked her in the eye. "Not you."

He shifted slightly in the bed, and Zenith took a pace back.

"Oh, come now! I am hardly likely to harm you in this condition, Zenith. Sit down on that stool by the far wall, if you like, but sit down and let me talk to you."

WolfStar had never been one to miss a chance when he saw it... and he realised, the instant he knew who his visitor was, that Zenith represented the most magnificent of chances. Here was DragonStar's remaining sibling, obviously upset and frightened. Deep inside, somewhere so dark that not a glimmer of emotion reached the light of WolfStar's face, the Enchanter gloated. Zenith could be used, and she could be used to manipulate DragonStar. Niah had been a failure, but Zenith would be a victory. She would bring him power.

Triumph roared through WolfStar's being, but not a smile crossed his bland face, nor a sound passed his carefully pain-thinned lips. His mind raced, constructing the trap.

Zenith stared at him, then looked at the stool against the wall (a safe, safe distance) before finally sitting down on the stool at the foot of the bed.

WolfStar smiled, a careful expression that contained surprise, some satisfaction and a great deal of pain. He relaxed back against the pillow. "Has anyone told you what has happened tome?"

"No."

"The Demons raped me, Zenith. Each one took their pleasure — if that it can be called —

many times."

Zenith froze. A tightness in her chest made her realise she'd also stopped breathing, and she jerked in a shallow breath.

"Surprised?" he said, and laughed hollowly. "Yes, you are. And no doubt pleased."

"Having experienced it myself," she said, her voice surprising her with its eagerness, "I would not wish it on anyone else."

"I thought I lay with Niah."

"She was there."

"But you were, too?"

She nodded, and then, to her horror, began to cry with great gulping breaths.

"Zenith ... Zenith ..." WolfStar stirred as if his injuries made him totally unable to comfort Zenith.

"I only had mind for Niah," he eventually said. "I thought that she would destroy you, and I thought only to enjoy her strength."

Zenith continued to sob, slightly louder now.

"But I was wrong. Ypw had the strength to defeat her, and I have ever admired strength and —"

"Oh, shut up!" Zenith slammed a fist down on the bed.

"Tell me why you are here," he said quietly.

She turned her head away.

"Why did you come back to me, Zenith?"

She whipped her eyes back to him. "I came to see you so I could put some of my own demons to rest!"

"And have you?"

She shook her head.

WolfStar extended his hand. "Please, take my hand, Zenith."

She ignored him.

"Please ... I think that you and I are alone in this night, and I think that you and I both need some comfort."

"Not from you!"

"Nevertheless," he said, "I am all that shares this gloomy and pain-raddled night with you. Take my hand."

And eventually, she stretched out her own hand and took his.

Later, when she had gone, WolfStar lay on the bed, and allowed himself to laugh.

Chapter 27

Axis Resumes a Purpose

DragonStar looked at the group before him, and wondered at how he would tell them the worst of possible news. They had trusted him, and he had not been able to provide for them.

Now he had to tell them that, in all likelihood, the entire struggle had been in vain. That Sanctuary would fall. And if Sanctuary fell, then, in all likelihood, they would die.

"Well?" Axis said.

He stood belligerently before his son, hands on hips, dressed in his habitual, comfortable black clothes, booted, armed, and prepared for war.

Azhure stood beside him, calmer, but DragonStar knew her well enough to know that Azhure's exterior calm was a face she'd cultivated over the years to provide an antidote to Axis' tendency for confrontation. Internally, she would be as angry, as frightened, and as unsure as everyone else in the room.

DragonStar glanced behind his parents. Many were here: the four witches still in Sanctuary —

Faraday, with so many mental and emotional barriers in place she looked like a piece of fragile Corolean glass; Leagh looking wan and exhausted; Zared, Herme and Theod, almost as belligerently anxious as Axis; StarDrifter, looking distracted (and DragonStar wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that Zenith wasn't in her quarters and couldn't, for the moment, be found); FreeFall and EvenSong, looking as useless as DragonStar himself felt; several of the Avar Banes, and Sa'Domai, the Chief of the Ravensbund. Sa'Domai looked, by far, the most collected person in the room, and DragonStar supposed that anyone who spent much of their life

dodging collapsing icebergs and battling the storms of the Icebear Coast might possibly find interstellar Demons a mild threat by comparison.

"I have no good news," DragonStar said, unable to keep the bitter twist from his mouth. He gestured helplessly. "I hope that Urbeth will do what she can to aid the Mother and the Sacred Groves, but I cannot rely on her being able to stop the Demons. If the Demons manage to feast on the power of the Sacred Groves, then — at the moment — I cannot think what might stop them."

"You are StarSon," Axis said flatly. "You have demanded that title since infancy. It is your job to know what is to be done!"

"And you went through your entire battle with Borneheld and Gorgrael with nary a single doubt, Axis?" DragonStar said. "You walked through the entire adventure gloriously confident and without putting a single foot wrong, without losing a single bloody life to your mistakes?"

Axis looked away.

"The icepack cracks and reforms," Sa'Domai said. "No-one ever knows where the cracks will appear next, but the icepack always reforms."

DragonStar took a deep breath, both grateful for Sa-Domai's philosophical interjection, and resentful at his calmness.

"I do not doubt that Sanctuary will fall," DragonStar said. "At the least, we have to plan for it."

"And what," FreeFall said, "do you plan to do about it?"

"If myself," DragonStar said, "or Faraday, Goldman, Leagh and Gwendylyr are trapped here, then we can do no good at all. We must return to the wasteland —"

"No!" Zared said, stepping forward and brushing past Axis. "Take Leagh back into the wasteland?

Have you seen her, DragonStar? Have you seen how sick and exhausted she is? Have you —"

"We have no damn choice, Zared!" DragonStar said. "None. It will be up to myself and my five companions to battle the Demons, and we cannot do it here. I doubt that Spiredore will remain viable much longer. We must leave now."

And I must get my witches to the places where they will confront their respective Demons, DragonStar thought, and where they will prepare the "weapons" that Qeteb has so kindly allowed them to choose. We must leave now if they are to have enough time to prepare.

"And the rest of us?" Axis said as Zared turned away in disgust. "What happens to the rest of us? You and yours might be able survive the wasteland and the Demons' influence, but none of us can.

What happens if — when — Sanctuary falls? Where do we go?"

And the rest of the people and animals of Sanctuary. Where do they go now? Where, if nowhere is safe?

DragonStar spread his hands helplessly. "I do not know, Axis. I simply do not know —"

Axis stepped forward and stabbed his finger into DragonStar's chest. "If you walk out of here now and take your four damn witches as you call them, with you, then I am assuming command of Sanctuary! I will work to keep safe what remains of Tencendor! Run about the wasteland all you like, DragonStar, play whatever game you want to, but I will assume responsibility for the saving of Tencendor's life!"

There was a silence as DragonStar stared into his father's eyes. Then ...

"Thank you," he said. "That would be a great weight off my mind."

Axis stared at DragonStar, then he burst into laughter: genuine, heartfelt laughter.

"Thank you," he said, "for allowing me some purpose back into my life."

DragonStar nodded, smiling a little himself, then looked at Faraday. "When we leave," he said, "we will leave Katie behind."

"No!" Faraday said in a low, harsh voice. "You've said yourself that Sanctuary will fall. She will die if we leave her here!"

"I thank you for your vote of confidence," Axis said to one side, but Faraday ignored him.

"We take her with us! I can protect her! I will —"

"No," DragonStar said. His voice was very flat, very hard. "She must stay here."

Faraday stared at DragonStar, almost loathing him. Ever since she'd seen Qeteb speak out of his mouth, seen the Demon's malice shine from his eyes, she'd not been able to forget that voice asking her if she would ever know whose hands caressed her body, whose voice spoke to her of love, whose love reached out to her in the night ... It had been enough to undermine the hard-found trust she had in DragonStar, and in herself. Would she ever know

who it was? DragonStar, or Qeteb? Who was it now saying, "We must go forth into the wasteland?"

DragonStar, or Qeteb?

Katie, and her desire to protect the girl at all costs, was all that was left for her. Illogically, even though she was not sure who was going to lead her back into the wasteland, and what might be waiting for them there, Faraday wanted to keep Katie with her. If only Katie was with her, then she would find some way to protect her, some way to keep her from harm. The vision she'd had many, many weeks ago of the armoured man — Qeteb — slicing open Katie's throat with a kitchen knife returned night after night to haunt her.

Faraday would let nothing harm Katie. Nothing.

"Faraday," Azhure said gently, putting her hands on Faraday's arm, "I will look after Katie as if she were my own."

"As if she were your own?" Faraday hissed. "You were never good at playing the caring mother, Azhure!"

"Faraday," DragonStar snapped, "that is enough!" He stepped forward and took Faraday's other arm, pulling her away from Azhure and the rest of the group.

"Faraday," DragonStar said in a low voice as he pulled her, stiff and resisting, over to a far corner of the chamber, "if you cannot trust me then we might as well lie down and offer our throats to Qeteb here and now."

She was silent.

"You have let me lay by you at nights," DragonStar said, his voice softer now, "and let me love you.

You trusted me then. Trust me now."

She stared at him with hard eyes, and then tried to pull away from him.

He grabbed her before she could walk away, hanging on to her arm and speaking hard and low into her ear; she would not look at him.

"You will know in here," he tapped her breast with his other hand, "when it is DragonStar who speaks to you, and when — if— it is Qeteb. You will know that!"

Faraday finally turned her eyes to him. They were wide, stricken, and so frightened that DragonStar felt his chest constrict.

"I want more than anything in this world, or in the thousand worlds that surround and touch ours, to be able to trust you, DragonStar. Yet to think that by trusting you I will be laying down and offering my throat to yet another demonic lover terrifies me."

DragonStar felt his heart break. "Gods, I love you, Faraday," he whispered, his mouth almost touching her ear. "I will never harm you, I will never offer you to Qeteb to save Tencendor. Please, gods curse it, please believe me."

"I will try," she said, a tear finally escaping from an eye. "I will try, DragonStar."

She pulled away again, and this time DragonStar let her go.

He wondered if he would ever have her back.

Was there nothing that could be saved from this chaos?

"I wish you luck," DragonStar said, gripping Axis' hand and arm, "with your self-appointed task."

"As I wish you well with yours," Axis said.

They fell silent, each staring into the others' eyes, each wondering if this was the last they'd see each other, and if this was one of the last moments of hope that Tencendor would have.

Azhure stepped forward and briefly, but fiercely, hugged DragonStar, then she turned and embraced the other four who would leave with him.

Katie clung to Azhure's skirts, and Faraday embraced the girl so tightly she squeaked in protest.

Azhure had to prise her loose from Faraday's grip.

"Let nothing happen to her!" Faraday said to Azhure, and Azhure touched Faraday's cheek with her fingers.

"I promise to do my best for her, Faraday. Will you accept that?"

Faraday hesitated, then nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. Azhure's best was better than virtually anyone else's. But even though Faraday knew she left Katie in the best of hands, she still hungered to be able to watch her herself.

"I love you," she whispered to the tiny girl.

"Love DragonStar instead," Katie said. "He needs it as much as I do."

Faraday's face closed over slightly, and she straightened and stood back, turning her face to look about her.

They were standing at the entrance to the valley of Sanctuary: Axis and Azhure, Zared and Theod, and DragonStar and his group. Behind DragonStar sidled Belaguez, anxious for war; the Alaunt, sitting, but very evidently impatient for action as well; and the blue-feathered lizard, irritably combing out some of the feathers on his off-hind leg. His emerald and scarlet crest was rising up and down so rapidly his plumage appeared blurred.

Zared was holding Leagh, as Theod held Gwendylyr; hard and angrily (why did their wives have to go?}, desperately, knowing they would, in all likelihood, never see them again.

"We will meet again," Gwendylyr tried to reassure Theod, "in the Field of Flowers, if nowhere else."

"And if the Demons get into that, as well?" Theod said. "If they destroy the Field? If they destroy everything else, Gwendylyr, and if they control the power of the Enemy, then they will inevitably get into the Field."

Gwendylyr clung to Theod, burying her face in his chest, fearing the truth of his words, and totally unable to speak.

Theod met Zared's eyes over her head. They were as hard, as angry, as implacable as his own.

Of the entire group, only Goldman seemed at ease, bending down and ruffling the thick hair on FortHeart's head, and clucking to her as if she was a child.

The hound relaxed into his hand, seemingly grateful for the reassurance.

"What will you do?" Axis asked DragonStar.

DragonStar shrugged a little. "What I must. And you?"

Axis smiled slightly. "This place must have some other way out. I cannot believe the Enemy built Sanctuary without a back door."

A back door to where? To what? DragonStar wondered, but said nothing. He gripped Axis' hand and arm again, then let go.

"Goldman, girls ... it is time we left." And he adjusted the Wolven where it hung over his shoulder, raised his sword, and drew the door of light.

"Come," DragonStar said, "let us dare Spiredore one last time."