Both Axis and Borneheld weaved with weariness now, and both began to slip every third or fourth step. Their breath was laboured, their faces and torsos wet with perspiration, while their arms looked as though they had invisible lead weights attached to them. Both men had sustained wounds, but Axis was bleeding a little more heavily than Borneheld. Borneheld was dressed in a thick leather jerkin and trousers, and the leather protected his skin more than Axis’ thin linen shirt protected his.
At no point did either man drop his eyes from those of his opponent. They had waited all their lives for this, and every stroke, every thrust, was powered by long yean of resentment and hate.
Everything that Faraday saw was shadowed by the vision the trees had shown her. It was as if there were four men out there; every time Axis raised his sword a ghost-like figure beside him raised his, every time Borneheld lunged so a ghost-like figure lunged with him.
Time passed, and the music danced on.
Axis staggered with weariness. How long had he been fighting? Borneheld allowed him no quarter, no time in which to catch his breath, no time in which to position himself to drive home a series of blows and thrusts that might serve to push Borneheld to his knees. His brother seemed to have the strength of a bull, fighting without pause, his eyes gleaming with madness.
In the end it was the eagle who proved Borneheld’s undoing. Throughout the fight the bird had clung to its high ledge, bored yet distracted by the fighting going on so far below it.
Finally it began to preen itself, twisting its head to and fro among its feathers as it sought to clean itself of some imagined stain.
It tore a small downy feather from among its chest feathers and spat it out, irritated, then turned back to comb the flight feathers of its left wing.
The white feather slowly floated, this way and that, now rising, now falling, now wafting this way, now that. But always it drifted lower and lower until it began to jerk and sway as it was caught by the laboured breathing of the combatants just beneath it.
It almost lodged in Axis’ hair, and Axis flicked his head, irritated by the feathery touch along his forehead, distracted enough that he only just managed to parry a blow close to his chest.
The feather, dislodged from Axis’ hair, spiralled upwards a handspan or two, then, caught in a down draught, sank towards the floor. Borneheld had not noticed it, and Axis had forgotten it, as the brothers began a particularly bitter exchange, fighting so close now that they traded blows virtually on the hilts of their swords, taking the strain on their wrists, both their faces reddened and damp from effort and weariness and determination and hate.
The feather settled on the marble floor.
Axis suddenly lunged forward. Momentarily surprised, and caught slightly offguard, Borneheld took a single step backwards and…lost his balance as his boot heel slipped on the feather.
It was all Axis needed. As Borneheld swayed, a look of almost comical surprise on his face, Axis hooked his own foot about the inside of Borneheld’s knee and pulled his leg out from under him.
Borneheld crashed to the floor, the sword slipping from his grasp, and Axis kicked it across the Chamber. Fear twisting his face, Borneheld scrabbled backwards, seeking space in which to rise. He risked a glance behind him – not two paces away Faraday stood held in Jorge’s tight grasp, a look of utter horror on her face. Borneheld stared briefly at his wife, knowing it was all over, knowing he had lost, then he turned his face back towards Axis, wanting to see the blow that would kill him.
All Faraday could see was what the vision let her. Real figures were obscured by the ghostly, and Faraday was certain, certain, that it was Axis who had tripped, exhausted, and now lay waiting for death at her feet.
Axis placed his booted foot squarely in the centre of Borneheld’s chest, raising his sword, but instead of bringing the blade down to sever the arteries of Borneheld’s neck he twisted the sword in his hand and struck Borneheld a stunning blow to his skull with its haft, leaving the man writhing weakly, semiconscious. Then Axis threw the sword away.
Every eye in the Chamber watched, bewildered, as Axis’ sword spun across the floor of the Chamber. What was he doing? Why did he not finish Borneheld with a quick, clean blow?
Axis sank to his knees, straddling Borneheld, and drew a knife from his boot. Then he tore open Borneheld’s leather jerkin, pushing the flaps to one side, and slid the knife deep and long into the man’s chest.
He used both hands wrapped about the haft of the knife to get enough leverage to split Borneheld’s sternum in two and crack open his rib cage, grunting with the effort.
The sound of bone splitting open was horrifying. Rivkah, directly across the Chamber, doubled over and gagged at the sound, and Magariz seized her in his arms and held her tight against his chest.
Borneheld’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his hands clenched by his sides. His entire body spasmed as Axis threw the knife to one side and took hold of Borneheld’s exposed rib cage with both hands and tore it apart.
Under the pressure of Axis’ fingers, Borneheld’s aorta split asunder. A massive gout of his blood arced out of his chest and splattered across Faraday’s neck and chest, running down between her breasts in warm rivulets. Driven to madness by the feel of the warm blood trickling down her body, Faraday screamed and screamed, twisting in Jorge’s arms.
But no matter how much she writhed, Faraday could not escape Borneheld’s dying stare. Or was it Axis’ eyes she saw? Faraday still could not distinguish the real figures from the ghostly. Who was dying at her feet? Whose eyes stared into hers in mute appeal? Was it Axis? Oh Mother, pray that it was not Axis who lay on the floor dying!
His arms bloodied to the elbow, his entire shirt-front warm with his brother’s heart blood, Axis reached into Borneheld’s open chest cavity and seized his brother’s frantically beating heart with his bare hands. Then he tore it out, spraying blood over all those within the immediate vicinity.
“FreeFall\” he screamed, leaning back from Borneheld’s body and staring into the dome of the Chamber. “FreeFa//!”
The eagle launched itself from its ledge, its shriek mingling with Axis’ scream, and plummeted for the floor of the Chamber.
As the eagle dived. Axis threw Borneheld’s still uselessly beating heart as high as he could, black blood spattering in great drops in his golden hair and across the floor of the Chamber. As the heart reached the peak of its arc, the eagle seized it in its talons and crashed to the floor in a tangle of wings, talons and beak, feeding frenziedly on the sweet meat offered it.
Everyone was so horrified by the sight of the eagle tearing Borneheld’s heart apart in the centre of the Chamber floor that they were literally incapable of movement. Even Rivkah, held close against Magariz’s chest, was mesmerised by the sight of the snow eagle feeding on her eldest son’s heart.
Axis leapt to his feet, slipping slightly in the pool of blood about Borneheld’s body.
Faraday stared at him, appalled. He was covered in blood – it dripped from his body, it hung in congealing strings through his hair and beard. He reached out a hand …
… and seized Faraday. Jorge let her go, sickened by the sight of the gore that dripped from both Faraday and Axis. Faraday twisted feebly as Axis seized her left wrist, frightened by the look in his eyes, gasping in pain as his warm and slippery fingers closed so tightly about the delicate bones of her wrist that they began to grind against each other.
Borneheld’s blood trickled yet further between her breasts, and she gagged. Everywhere, the blood. She could feel it, smell it, taste it.
Axis wrenched the Ichtar ruby from her heart finger and half turned back to Borneheld’s body. He still kept Faraday caught in his vice-like grip.
“/ have fulfilled my part of the bargain, GateKeeperl” he screamed, “Nowfulfil yoursl”
He tossed the Ichtar ruby into Borneheld’s chest cavity where it glinted momentarily before sinking beneath the pool of coagulating blood where Borneheld’s heart had once been.
TransformationsFor two thousand years she had been trapped in the hated ruby, trapped on the fingers of countless Duchesses of Ichtar. For two thousand years she had been trapped, listening to countless conversations, watching countless lives drift past through a ruby haze, weeping with the coundess women forced to wear the ring and endure the cursed Dukes of Ichtar.
It had been the damming of the spring two thousand years ago which had bound Zeherah into this ruby, although what other dark enchantments had been used to trap her, she did not know. Which Duke had it been, so frustrated by the bridge’s refusal to let him pass that he had decided to dam the spring and drain the Lake of Life? Zeherah could not remember and, in the end, it did not matter very much. All that mattered was that as the waters had dried up so Zeherah felt herself start to fade. As the sun dried the last muddied puddle in the moat, and the bridge sighed and disappeared, the watching Duke on the far bank had pointed into the moat and cried out at the magnificent ruby lying there in the mud. So Zeherah, the fifth Sentinel, had been condemned to eons trapped in this hated gem.