She did not like it. It was too close, the streets too narrow, and she yearned for the
vastness of the ice-packs to the north.
But it was time, more than time, that she came south to see to her miscreant children.
There were lessons to be learned, and no-one left but she to teach them.
Of course, Noah could have been a trifle more forthcoming, but that was a man for you,
and it was no wonder that Drago, as all her children, was mildly confused.
She halted, raising her head to stare at the rising bulk of Gorkenfort with dark eyes
suddenly sharp with knowledge. So. One side of her razor-toothed red mouth lifted as if in a
smile—or perhaps a feral grin—then she dropped her head and resumed her slow padding
towards the fort.
One of her ears was so badly tattered it was virtually non-existent, as if it had been lost in
some ancient ursine dispute.
She wished she could sink her teeth into the back of a seal, but they lay many days‘
journey to the north, and she‘d have to wait a little longer before she could look forward to that
pleasure again.
The fire had died down to glowing coals, but the chamber was warm. Faraday lay curled
up in her cloak before the fire, having refused to lie once more in the bed she‘d shared with
Borneheld.
Now Drago lay there, snug under the heavy quilt, yet cold in its lonely spaces.
The fire cracked and popped, and both sank deeper into their dreams.
Then a massive, frightful roar echoed about the chamber, disintegrating both peace and
dream.
Something grabbed and clawed at the foot of the bed, and Drago jerked awake,
momentarily too disorientated to do anything save clutch uselessly at the covers sliding towards
the floor.
He shouted at Faraday, but she was already awake and crouching against the back wall,
staring at something between the door and the bed.
Drago wrenched his eyes away from her and to the foot of the bed.
A dark shape loomed over the mattress. It roared again, and then a flame flickered among
the coals, and Drago and Faraday saw that a great icebear stood with its forepaws on the foot of
the bed, shaking its head to and fro, and growling around the feathered lizard it held between its
teeth.
37
The Lesson of the Sparrow
Faraday blinked, and she saw a great icebear savaging the feathered lizard.
She blinked again, and she saw a grey-haired woman, clothed in ice, impossibly lifting a
bull seal in her bare ivory arms and sinking great white fangs into his spine. Blood ran down the
seal‘s fur, and pooled in the quilt tangled about Drago‘s feet.
―It‘s all right,‖ Drago said to Faraday, and she blinked one more time, and the visionary
woman vanished.
The icebear spat the lizard out with a disgusted growl. The lizard squealed, landed in
Drago‘s lap and immediately scrabbled for a hiding place among the disarranged quilt.
Blue feathers drifted about in the air.
―It bit me,‖ the icebear said, her tone disgusted at the temerity of the lizard, and then she
tipped her head and looked at Drago, her black eyes gleaming with interest.
―You are Drago,‖ she said. ―You were but a babe when Azhure talked of you to me.‖
―And you are Urbeth.‖
Urbeth, the mysterious icebear of the northern ice-packs, worshipped by the
Ravensbundmen and feared by every seal, seagull and fish in existence.
―Quite so,‖ Urbeth said, then sat down on the floor, her hind legs splayed, one of her
forepaws absently combing out the yellowed fur of her belly.
Drago slid out of the bed and pulled on his clothes. ―Why did Noah send me north to see
you?‖
Urbeth ignored him. She had turned her head to regard Faraday curiously. ―So, I finally
meet Faraday. When Axis and Azhure gossiped with me on the Icebear Coast so many years ago,
images of you suffused both their thoughts.
―And then, of course, Gorgrael had you brought north into his ice fortress. I came too late
to that place to meet you.‖ But Urbeth remembered how she‘d met Axis, on one knee in the
freezing snow and wind, his head bowed with grief. And, looking into Faraday‘s eyes, the bear
knew she was remembering, too.
―We all had our different purposes then,‖ Faraday said, and threw her blanket aside,
pulling her dress straight.
―Why do you need to speak to me?‖ Drago said.
Urbeth sighed. ―Have you no patience? I have walked many leagues and have blistered
my paws to meet you. The least you could do is share with me what gossip you have before
badgering me with bald questions.‖
―No doubt you have heard of the Demons, Urbeth?‖ Faraday said, stirring the embers into
life again.
Urbeth snarled, causing both Drago and Faraday to stare at her.
―Curse Noah, to hide in this land cargo to tempt such Demons through the Star Gate!‖
―If you know of Noah,‖ Drago said quietly, ―then what gossip can we tell you?‖
―Everything,‖ said the bear. ―Well may I know a name or two, but those damned
Ravensbund are too reticent to share every piece of gossip from the south. When did the Demons
come through? How? And how lies Tencendor?‖
Drago exchanged a glance with Faraday, then sank down on a stool by the fire.
―There is much to tell,‖ he said, as Faraday sat across the hearth from him.
―Then tell,‖ said Urbeth.
Drago and Faraday shared turns to talk through the night of what they knew. Urbeth
stretched out by the fire, her eyes half-closed, occasionally rolling on to her back with her four
paws dangling in the air to toast her belly.
Every time either Drago or Faraday paused, Urbeth would widen one of her eyes and
press them to continue. And yet, Drago had the oddest feeling that little of this was new to the
bear.
Finally, as Drago brought their tale to the gates of Gorkenfort itself, he asked again,
―Why did Noah ask me to come north to Gorkenfort to meet you? What did he mean, our
‗ancestral‘ mother?‖
Urbeth lay on her back staring at the ceiling for a while before she answered.
―Noah wanted me to remind you of something,‖ she said.
―What?‖ Drago asked.
―A story,‖ Urbeth said. ―A lesson.‖
Drago exchanged a puzzled glance with Faraday. ―A story?‖
Urbeth rolled over onto her side, and pushed herself into a sitting position with her
forepaws. ―The Story of the Sparrow,‖ she said. ―Do you know it?‖
Drago half-laughed. ―But that‘s—‖
― Necessary! ‖ Urbeth said, and a growl rumbled from her chest. ―Tell it!‖
Drago looked again at Faraday, whose eyes were bright with curiosity, then acceded to
Urbeth‘s request—or demand.
―This story has only been found relatively recently,‖ he said. ―It was discovered among
the ancient books that my father and StarDrifter found in Spiredore when they freed it from the
Brothers of the Seneschal.‖
He paused, clearly disquieted about something. ―No Enchanters pay it much heed. I
mean…‖
Drago stopped, and Urbeth grinned and scratched her stomach. ―I can well imagine why
they would want to disregard it, boy. But please…‖
―It is only a myth,‖ he said. ―Unverifiable. A children‘s tale only. StarDrifter told it to me
to amuse me one evening.‖
―So now amuse us with it,‖ Faraday said.
Drago sighed and capitulated.
―Well,‖ he said, shifting about in his chair, ―there has always been some mystery about
the origins of the four races of Tencendor. The Avar‘s origins remain shrouded in the secret
mysteries of the Sacred Groves, and they have never shared that mystery with any outsiders,
even the Icarii. So,‖ he shrugged, ―of the Avar I cannot tell.
―The Story of the Sparrow, however, tells a little of the ancient Enchantress, of the
origins of the Icarii race, of their father, of how they found their wings, and of the SunSoar
affection each for the other.‖
Again Drago paused, but this time it was only for reflection. The firelight played over his
face, lending it both warmth and mystery, and Faraday‘s own expression stilled as she watched
him. Here, now, where the shadows of the fire hid her face and Drago concentrated on something
else, it was safe to let herself love him a little.
But only a little…enough to pull back before it hurt.
―Listen to the Story of the Sparrow,‖ he said, and leaned forward, his voice taking on the
hypnotic quality of a court troubadour and the rhythmic beauty of a SunSoar:
As you must both know, the Icarii, as the Charonites and the Acharites, were all born of
the ancient Enchantress. She had three sons, fathered by the gods only alone knew, and of those
three sons she favoured only the younger two. To them she whispered some of her myriad of
secrets, while the eldest she cast from her door and turned her back on his pleas. This eldest