landscape. These mountains could kill even the fittest man, and she was seriously weakened by
the terrible birth of her son two days before.
And despite all her travail and prayers and tears and curses he had died during that birth,
born so still and blue that the midwives had huddled him away, not letting her hold him or weep
over him.
And as the midwives fled the birthing chamber, the two men had come in, their eyes cold
and derisive, their mouths twisting with scorn. They had dragged her weeping and bleeding from
the room, dragged her from her life of comfort and deference, dumped her into a splintered old
cart and drove her throughout the day to this spot at the base of the Icescarp Alps. They had said
not a word the entire way.
Finally they had unceremoniously tipped her out. No doubt they wished her dead, but
neither had dared stain their hands with her blood. Better this way, where she could endure a
slow death on the dreaded mountains, prey to the Forbidden Ones which crouched among the
rocks, prey to the cold and the ice, and with time to contemplate the shame of her illegitimate
child…her dead illegitimate child.
But she was determined not to die. There was one chance and one chance only. She
would have to climb high into the Alps. Barely out of girlhood and clad only in tatters, she willed
herself to succeed.
Her feet had gone to ice the first few hours and she now could no longer feel them. Her
toes were black. Her fingernails, torn from her hands, had left gaping holes at the ends of her
fingers that had iced over. Now they were turning black too. Her lips were so dry and frozen they
had drawn back from her teeth and solidified into a ghastly rictus.
She huddled against the rock. Although she had started the climb in hope and
determination, even she, her natural stubbornness notwithstanding, realised her situation was
precarious. She had stopped shivering hours ago. A bad sign.
The creature had been watching the woman curiously for some hours now. It was far up
the slopes of the mountain, peering down from its heights through eyes that could see a mouse
burp at five leagues. Only the fact that she was below his favourite day roost made the creature
stir, fluff out its feathers in the icy air, then spread its wings and launch itself abruptly into the
swirling wind, angered by the intrusion. It would rather have spent the day preening itself in
what weak sun there was. It was a vain creature.
She saw it circling far above her. She squinted into the sun, grey specks of exhaustion
almost obscuring her sight.
―StarDrifter?‖ she whispered, hope strengthening her heart and her voice. Slowly,
hesitatingly, she lifted a blackened hand towards the sky. ―Is that you?‖
1
THE TOWER OF THE SENESCHAL
Twenty-nine years later…
The speckled blue eagle floated high in the sky above the hopes and works of mankind.
With a wingspan as wide as a man was tall, it drifted lazily through the air thermals rising off the
vast inland plains of the kingdom of Achar. Almost directly below lay the silver–blue expanse of
Grail Lake, flowing into the great River Nordra as it coiled through Achar towards the Sea of
Tyrre. The lake was enormous and rich in fish, and the eagle fed well there. But more than fish,
the eagle fed on the refuse of the lakeside city of Carlon. Pristine as the ancient city might be
with its pink and cream stone walls and gold and silver plated roofs; pretty as it might be with its
tens of thousands of pennants and banners and flags fluttering in the wind, the Carlonites ate and
shat like every other creature in creation, and the piles of refuse outside the city walls supported
enough mice and rats to feed a thousand eagles and hawks.
The eagle had already feasted earlier that morning and was not interested in gorging
again so soon. It let itself drift further east across Grail Lake until the white-walled seven-sided
Tower of the Seneschal rose one hundred paces into the air to greet the sun. There the eagle
tipped its wing and its balance, veering slowly to the north, looking for a shady afternoon roost.
It was an old and wise eagle and knew that it would probably have to settle for the shady eaves
of some farmer‘s barn in this most treeless of lands.
As it flew it pondered the minds and ways of these men who feared trees so much that
they‘d cut down most of the ancient forests once covering this land. It was the way of the Axe
and of the Plough.
Far below the eagle, Jayme, Brother-Leader of the Religious Brotherhood of the
Seneschal, most senior mediator between the one god Artor the Ploughman and the hearts and
souls of the Acharites, paced across his comfortable chamber in the upper reaches of the Tower
of the Seneschal.
―The news grows more disturbing,‖ he muttered, his kindly face crinkling into deep
seams of worry. For years he‘d refused to accept the office his fellow brothers had pressed on him, and now, five years after he‘d finally bowed to their wishes and accepted that Artor himself
must want him to hold supreme office within the Seneschal, Jayme feared that it would be he
who might well have to see the Seneschal—nay, Achar itself—through its greatest crisis in a
thousand years.
He sighed and turned to stare out the window. Even though it was only early
DeadLeaf-month, the first week of the first month of autumn, the wind had turned icy several
days before, and the windows were tightly shut against the cold. A fire blazed in the mottled
green marble fireplace behind his desk, the light of the flames picking out the inlaid gold tracery
in the stone and the silver, crystal and gold on the mantel.
The younger of his two assistants stepped forward. ―Do you believe the reports to be true,
Brother-Leader?‖
Jayme turned to reassure Gilbert, whom he thought might yet prove to have a tendency
towards alarm and panic. Who knew? Perhaps such tendencies would serve him well over the
coming months. ―My son, it has been so many generations since anyone has reliably spotted any
of the Forbidden Ones that, for all we know, these reports might be occasioned only by
superstitious peasants frightened by rabbits gambolling at dusk.‖
Gilbert rubbed his tonsured head anxiously and glanced across at Moryson, Jayme‘s
senior assistant and first adviser, before speaking again. ―But so many of these reports come
from our own brothers, Brother-Leader.‖
Jayme resisted the impulse to retort that most of the brothers in the northern Retreat of
Gorkentown, where many of these reports originated, were little more than superstitious peasants
themselves. But Gilbert was young, and had never travelled far from the glamour and cultivation
of Carlon, or the pious and intellectual atmosphere of the Tower of the Seneschal where he had
been educated and admitted into holy orders to serve Artor.
And Jayme himself feared that it was more than rabbits that had frightened his
Gorkentown brethren. There were reports coming out of the small village of Smyrton, far to the
north-east, that needed to be considered as well.
Jayme sighed again and sat down in the comfortable chair at his desk. One of the benefits
of the highest religious office in the land was the physical comforts of the Brother-Leader‘s
quarters high in the Tower. Jayme was not hypocritical enough to pretend that, at his age, his
aching joints did not appreciate the well-made and cushioned furniture, pleasing both to eye and
to body, that decorated his quarters. Nor did he pretend not to appreciate the fine foods and the
invitations to the best houses in Carlon. When he did not have to attend to the administration of
the Seneschal or to the social or religious duties of his position, there for the stimulation of his
mind were thousands of leather-bound books lining the shelves of his quarters, with religious
icons and portraits collected over past generations decorating every other spare space of wall and
bringing some measure of peace and comfort to his soul. His bright blue eyes, still sharp after so
many years spent seeking out the sins of the Acharites, travelled indulgently over one
particularly fine representation of the Divine Artor on the occasion that he had presented
mankind with the gift of The Plough, a gift that had enabled mankind to rise above the limits of
barbarity and cultivate both land and mind.
Brother Moryson, a tall, lean man with a deeply furrowed brow, regarded his
Brother-Leader with fondness and respect. They had known each other for many decades, having
both been appointed as the Seneschal‘s representatives to the royal court in their youth. Later
they had moved to the royal household itself. Too many years ago, thought Moryson, looking at