“What is it about you, Niah,” DragonStar whispered. “What?”
He sighed, and looked down. He sat cross-legged on the floor, the Enchanted Song Book in his lap.
The blue-feathered lizard was curled up at his back, and DragonStar leaned back against him
comfortably.
Every so often the lizard snored, and whenever he did, a shaft of light glinted from one of his claws.
DragonStar paid no attention. More than anything else, he wanted to get out and do things, but he
knew — as he’d told his
witches — that he needed experience as well as a thorough knowledge of the Enchanted Song Book
before he could do anything against the Demons.
He opened the leather cover and slowly thumbed through the pages. The Book contained
Songs, music and dance that symbolised the enchantments needed to defeat the Demons. They
would mirror the Demons’ own malevolences back to them and destroy them.
“And wipe them from the face of this land and of the universe for ever and ever,”
DragonStar whispered.
He thought about what Axis had told him. Caelum had tried one of these dances atop Star Finger,
but had been consumed almost entirely by the hatred and malevolence the song contained.
DragonStar’s fingers traced over a line of music: he could feel the emotion this particular song
contained — envy. He ran his tongue over his top lip, stared at the form and melody of the
song, then swiftly converted it to numbers and then symbols in his mind.
He felt sick with apprehension. Should he try it? See what happened … Could he control the Song
more than Caelum?
At his back the lizard stirred and sat up.
“Well, my beauty,” DragonStar said. “What do you think I should do?”
The lizard yawned, then flexed one of his foreclaws.
“So,” DragonStar said, “we try it.”
What other choice did he have?
He rose to his feet and put the Book down. As the lizard had just done, DragonStar flexed a hand,
then rose and traced the symbol in the air before him.
The lizard traced it with light.
And Envy filled the Hall.
A wizened old man stood before DragonStar and the lizard. He was twisted and humpbacked, his
limbs stumpy, his hands contorted with arthritis.
He was naked, and his skin was sallow and slick with the sheen of sweat.
Lumps and moles covered his face; his eyes were like narrow slits that saw everything, noting them
all down to be examined in the privacy of disenchanted silence.
He smiled, revealing crooked, yellowing teeth, and horrid thoughts consumed DragonStar’s mind.
Caelum had enjoyed it all. He’d had forty years of love, forty years of respect, forty years of
lording it over the peoples of Tencendor. So he’d died horribly — so what? Now he dwelt in the
field of flowers, no doubt enjoying the adulation of everyone else who lived there.
And what was Drago, poor Drago to do. Why! destroy the Demons of course, while
Caelum continued to enjoy himself. He’d had only a few minutes of pain, while Drago had
forty years behind him, and more ahead.
DragonStar felt such consuming envy ripple through him that he literally growled. He felt his own
back hunch over, and his hands twist into claws. Caelum was nothing but a spoilt bastard who’d had
everything handed to him on a golden platter, while he, he, had to do all the hard work.
The misshapen figure of Envy capered about before him, clapping its hands, and howling with
merriment. “Why don’t you visit the Field of Flowers and destroy him forever,” he whispered. “You can
do it, you know. You have the power.”
The lizard growled, and backed away a few paces.
DragonStar whipped about, raising his hand as if to strike the creature — what had that lizard
ever done but enjoy a free ride? He’d spent aeons as an unfettered spirit in the Sacred Grove, and
then the Minstrelsea forest, and had then simply attached himself to DragonStar’s cause with no
hard work involved at all — and then halted the instant before his hand flashed down in a cruel blow.
What was happening?
DragonStar struggled to control the envy, and the other emotions envy bred — hate and cruelty and
a cloying, horrid self-justification — but he couldn’t… he couldn’t…
The old man capered about him in circles, clapping his hands. “Enjoy it!” he cried. “Give in to it!
Why bother with such inconveniences as regard for others? Enjoy it! It’s the easiest way!”
And DragonStar could feel how easy it would be. All he’d have to do was give in and let the envy
consume him, and all would be well, all would be well, and he could finally relax and bathe in the
emotions that he’d nurtured for so many years as a resentful man locked inside the hate of Sigholt and
the SunSoar family.
A small hand slipped into one of his, and DragonStar jerked. It was Katie, her eyes frightened, her
mouth trembling.
DragonStar saw that she was terrified.
Envy howled with rage.
“The cats!” Katie whispered. “The cats!”
The cats? DragonStar stared at her. Why was she helping him …or was she helping him at
all? Why, Faraday cherished this little girl in a way that she did not cherish him, DragonStar could see
that now. Faraday gave this weak little girl all the love and attention that she never gave him.
DragonStar growled again, and jerked his hand from Katie’s.
Envy laughed.
And something small and furry wound its way about DragonStar’s legs.
He jerked his eyes down. It was a white and marmalade cat, and its body shook with the strength of
its purrs.
DragonStar lifted his hand to strike the thing —
— and remembered. He remembered that the cats had given him nothing but unconditional love
when he’d been rejected by everyone and everything else in Sigholt. He remembered that they’d left their
food to comfort him; they’d been content in his company, and they had revelled in his friendship.
They had asked for nothing in return.
They had not envied him his strength, or his speech, or even his name.
They had just loved him.
DragonStar lifted his eyes to Envy. “I pity you,” he said, and Envy screamed.
“Let me offer you my friendship,” DragonStar said, and extended his hand, palm upwards.
Envy stared, whimpered, and suddenly disappeared.
DragonStar shuddered, and leaned down, hands on knees, trying to regain his equilibrium.
The lizard had scuttled across the room, and now was hunched down on the floor with
his claws firmly tucked underneath his body. He wanted nothing more to do with enchantments from
that Book.
The white and marmalade cat was curled up behind him, watching DragonStar carefully.
“I cannot use this Book,” DragonStar eventually whispered.
“Use it you must,” Katie said, “or all who have sacrificed themselves before you, and who will
sacrifice themselves in the future for you, will have done so in vain.”
DragonStar straightened and stared at the girl. “The Book contains nothing but foulness.”
Katie stared at him.
“Dammit! What is its secret? How do I use it!”
She continued to stare silently at him.
“You have most to lose, damn you — so tell me its secret!”
“I cannot,” Katie said, her voice sad. “You must learn it for yourself.”
DragonStar fought an overwhelming urge to throw the Book across the room, then he forced himself
to relax, slowly rotating his neck and shoulders, and finally offered Katie his hand.
“I am sorry.”
She smiled and slipped her hand into his. “You should already have learned one lesson,”
she said. “What was it?”
DragonStar almost grated his teeth, then chose to think it carefully through. “Envy consumed me,” he
finally said, “and I could not control it.”
“And what broke the spell that Envy had thrown over you?”
“The cat,” Drago whispered. “Unconditional love.”
Katie nodded, and kissed his hand.
Faraday found them sitting on a pillowed bench seat in a window. The view beyond the glass panes was
breathtaking: gardens and ponds stretched over several leagues to where the enclosing blue-cliff walls of
Sanctuary rose.
“It’s so beautiful,” Faraday said as she sat on the other side of Katie.
DragonStar turned his head from the window and smiled at her over the girl’s head. It is cloying, he
wanted to say, but he could not explain his emotions, so he merely nodded.
“What have you two been doing?” Faraday said, sensing the remaining tension.
DragonStar sighed, and indicated the Enchanted Song Book lying on the end of the seat. “I
have been playing about with that.”
“And does it tell you what you need to know?”
“Yes,” said Katie, and DragonStar shot her a mildly irritated glance.
“It tells me many things,” DragonStar said, “and all of them uncomfortable.”
Faraday looked between DragonStar and Katie, her face growing more puzzled. She slid her arms
about the girl and drew her back into her body, an instinctively protective gesture.