Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 2 – Enchanter

Axis frowned, perplexed, but he took his stool in the centre of the room. Unnoticed, Azhure sat down on the floor by the door.

MorningStar paused and collected her thoughts.

“Axis,” she said finally. “Your training has gone so well. You display an extraordinary ability to master a Song the moment you hear it and to control the power that flows through the melody. You hear the Star Dance more clearly, it seems, than anyone eke. You are a remarkable Enchanter.”

Axis’ eyes narrowed at MorningStar’s rare praise.

“He is the StarMan,” Veremund murmured to one side. “One would expect that —”

“I am not a fool!” MorningStar snarled abruptly. “I understand that Axis wields remarkable powers. I understand that because of who he is it’s no wonder he’s had little difficulty with a training that normally taxes the most gifted Enchanter for years. I understand that!”

She took a deep breath, righting to keep her temper under control and to keep her face from showing the sheer dread that fed her anger.

“Axis.” Her face was now a mask of serenity, its bland lines hiding her fears. “How did you know the Song of Harmony?”

Axis frowned, even more perplexed. “You sang it for me, MorningStar.”

“No!” she whispered, her fingers twisting among the golden beads at her throat. “I told you its name, and what it could be used for, but as I took the breath to sing it, you started to sing it yourself. You already knew it.”

“I …” Axis’ voice drifted off as he tried to remember.

“It was not a Song that StarDrifter would have sung for you while you lay cradled in Rivkah’s womb. He could not have done it. / have not sung it for you before. Yet you already knew it. How, when it takes a SunSoar to instruct a SunSoar, do you know this Song when neither of the two living SunSoar Enchanters has taught it to you?” She glanced briefly at the two Sentinels. “No Enchanter, no matter how powerful, instinctively knows the Songs. He or she must be taught them, and by a member of their own blood.

“StarDrifter. When Axis was growing in Rivkah’s womb, did you ever sing for him the Song of Recreation?”

“No.” StarDrifter smiled a little at the memory. “I sang for him many things, but not that. It is no thing to sing to a developing baby.”

MorningStar nodded. “And yet, Axis knew what to sing for the Avar girl. Raum has told me of this.”

“Yes,” Ogden nodded slowly. “Veremund and I heard it too. He sang beautifully.”

“Yes,” MorningStar repeated woodenly, her face set into hard lines. “Axis. You have learned well since your arrival in Talon Spike. Too well. Far too well. I have wondered why many times. When you sang the Song of Harmony it confirmed my worst fears. Axis, StarDrifter and I have not been training you at all. We have simply been reminding you. You have already been trained, probably as a very small child.”

She paused, and when she resumed her words were chill stones in the absolute silence of the chamber. “Who trained you as a child, Axis? Who?”

Axis gaped at her. She looked fierce, almost ready to attack, and he stood slowly. “MorningStar, what do you mean? Trained? How? Who by? If I have been already trained then why haven’t I been able to use my powers all my life? No. No, you must be wrong.”

MorningStar held his eyes steadily. If he was only pretending confusion, then he was doing a good job. “You must have been trained at a very young age and undoubtedly you do not remember it. Because you never used your powers they fell into disuse as you grew older. But over the past year, as the Prophecy and its Sentinels unlocked your past, as you discovered your true identity, the Songs have drifted back.”

“But, MorningStar,” Veremund began, “I thought that only another Enchanter of the same family could teach an Enchanter.”

MorningStar gave a curt nod. “You are right.” “Then who else is there in your family who could have had access to Axis? What other Enchanters?”

MorningStar lifted her chin. “StarDrifter and I are the only two SunSoar Enchanters – apart, of course, from Axis himself. I received my powers from my mother, DriftStar, also a SunSoar, but she died some three hundred years ago.”

“Are you saying that there is another SunSoar Enchanter running about?” Azhure asked. Everyone in the room jumped slightly; they had forgotten her presence. “Someone you aren’t aware of? Someone who taught Axis as a baby?”

MorningStar stared at Azhure, who had risen slowly to her feet. She nodded. “Yes. I was afraid to say the words, but yes. That is what I think.”

“But who?” Axis said. “Why hide from me? And how did an Icarii Enchanter have access to me in the Seneschal? Howl I don’t understand.”

“My son,” StarDrifter stepped up to Axis and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I fear there might be worse. If there is another SunSoar Enchanter about then…then …” he hesitated, “then it might explain who taught Gorgrael as well.”

MorningStar visibly rocked on her feet, and her hand drifted to her throat in horror. “Gorgrael?”

“After Yuletide FreeFall asked me how Gorgrael had learned his powers,” StarDrifter said, dropping his hand from Axis’ shoulder and moving to his mothers side. “I said then that he’d obtained his powers from the music of discord, the Dance of Death, rather than the Star Dance. But I evaded the real issue. Gorgrael had to be taught how to use that music as well, and he had to be taught by someone of the same blood. A family member. A SunSoar Enchanter.”

“But who? And who would teach both? And teach them each such different music?” MorningStar turned to the Sentinels. “Ogden, Veremund, can you help us? Please?”

They shook their heads and Veremund spread his hands helplessly. “There are many riddles within the Prophecy we do not understand, but I do not think the Prophecy even alludes to this problem, MorningStar. All the Prophecy tells us is that the same man fathered both the Destroyer and the StarMan – StarDrifter, as we now know. It says nothing about who trained them. But a SunSoar presumably, as they are both of SunSoar blood.”

“Axis.” Now MorningStar addressed her grandson. “Do you know? Is there anything you should be telling us?”

Axis’ temper boiled over. “I do not lie to you, Morning-Star, and I do not dissemble! If I knew anything I would tell you!”

Azhure moved to his side and rested a soothing hand against his back. “Axis, shush. Is there nothing you remember?”

Axis’ eyes snapped at her but he did not attempt to pull away from the comforting touch of her hand. “No,” he said finally. “All I know is that over the past few months, ever since Ogden and Veremund gave me the Prophecy written in Icarii script to read, memories and melodies have been bubbling to the surface. I did not think to ask myself who put them there in the first place.”

“Veremund and I should have noticed,” Ogden said. “We should have asked ourselves how Axis knew the Song of Recreation. Why he seemed to know so many melodies.

But,” he shrugged his shoulders, “we were so thrilled to have finally found the StarMan after so many thousands of years, so thrilled that finally the Prophecy walked after such a long wait, that we did not think to ask ourselves these questions.”

MorningStar let her eyes drift over the people before her, finally bringing them to rest on Axis. “So. You have been taught, as Gorgrael has been taught, by an unknown SunSoar Enchanter. Unknown, because where could he or she have come from? Only from the loins of myself or my mother, and I can assure you that is not the case. I have only borne two children, and I was my mother’s only child — through complications sustained in birthing me she was never able to have another infant.” She paused, and when she resumed her voice was so soft that the others could hardly hear it. “And this SunSoar Enchanter is not only unknown, but incredibly powerful. No-one has been able to use the Dark Music previously – its use has been only theorised until now — yet this SunSoar Enchanter was able to teach it to Gorgrael. I think we have a right to be afraid of him.”

For a long time there was silence as everyone stood wrapped in their own thoughts. Ogden andVeremund took each other’s hands. StarDrifter turned away to hide his face as he thought. Azhure leaned a little closer to Axis, slipping her arm about his waist and giving him a quick hug; Axis smiled at her gratefully. She was a good friend.

“Again I think we might be evading the real questions here,” StarDrifter finally said into the silence, turning back to the others. “And they are: Where is this SunSoar Enchanter now? What does he plan? What does he plot? Is he for Axis? Or is he for Gorgrael?”