Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 2 – Enchanter

The Gryphon circled high overhead. It was a mission fraught with dangers and traps, she knew, but it was an important mission, and Gorgrael had not wanted to trust it to a SkraeBold. Gorgrael had sent her south to spy out Carlon. What was Axis up to? Gorgrael had asked the Gryphon. What state his forces? Where were they? Could Gorgrael attack through the trench systems of Jervois Landing and expect little resistance from Axis?

To these questions and others the Gryphon had relayed her answers as best she could. Most forces were still concentrated about Carlon, and the soil was still red east of the city from a mighty battle. Borneheld lay dead and rotted on the refuse heap. Axis strode golden and assured and spoke at length of Tencendor. The woman, Faraday, walked by his side. Icarii and Acharite mixed freely. And Spiredore — Spiredore had wakened in much the same way that Sigholt had awakened. Tencendor was waking about Axis, and if Gorgrael wanted to move, he’d best do it quickly.

The Gryphon had finished her surveillance of Carlon and its surrounds and was ready to fly home and out of danger, but her attention was caught by the woman and baby atop Spiredore. There was something strange about them…strange…but the Gryphon did not quite know what it was. Should she fly closer for a look? Should she attack? There was no-one else about, and the Gryphon was confident of success. A woman. Alone. No weapons. Tasty.

And the Gryphon had the distinct advantage of being able to attack from out of the dawning sun.

She communed with Gorgrael with her mind, asking permission to ravage.

Gorgrael could see no harm in it.

Azhure stood atop Spiredore and laughed at Caelum. He was reaching out to the sun, it seemed so magically close, his eyes wide with wonder and joy.

She turned to look at the dawning sun, and blinked. There was a dark spot spinning out of the red orb. Puzzled, Azhure stared…and then screamed, wrenching Caelum to the floor of the roof in a futile attempt to protect him with her body.

Both Axis and StarDrifter saw and heard Azhure scream.

“Gryphon!” Axis cried, appalled. “Azhurer he screamed…and vanished.

StarDrifter stared at the spot where Axis had been – then back at Azhure. The Gryphon was clearly hurtling down towards her now – and Azhure was surely dead if he did not do something very, very soon.

Without a single thought to his own safety StarDrifter lifted off the balcony and streaked towards Spiredore.

Axis materialised into a screaming fury of blood, bone, feathers and thick grey mist. He stared about him frantically -what enchantment could he use to overcome an attacking Gryphon?

A scream whipped through his consciousness and his vision began to clear. The scream had been Caelum’s, and the sound was one of primeval terror.

“Caelum!” he shouted, and fought his way through to the sound. “Caelum!”

As he struggled through the grey mist Axis felt power being wielded on the rooftop, dark power, the power of the Dance of Death. How could he combat that? Were Azhure and Caelum dead already? He could hear no more sounds, save a peculiar splintering, tearing sound – oh gods! Was the Gryphon already feeding on their bodies?

He stumbled into an area free of mist, and the first thing he saw was Azhure, Caelum clinging desperately to her, lying with her back against one of the far walls of the parapets. She had a nasty wound along one arm, as if the Gryphon had struck as she raised an arm to protect her face, but otherwise appeared to be uninjured.

About five paces in front of her, the Gryphon lay writhing and twisting. For one stunned moment Axis thought an invisible beast was attacking the Gryphon, but then he realised that the beast was in the grip of an enchantment, and that this enchantment was literally ripping the Gryphon apart.

The enchantment used was of the Dark Music.

Behind him Axis dimly heard StarDrifter alight and scream his name, but his attention was all on the Gryphon and on the dark enchantments that were being used to tear it apart.

Slowly…slowly…slowly he lifted his eyes to Azhure. She was staring at the creature, ignoring the screams of the child in her arms.

The Dark Music was being wielded by her. She was using the power of the Dark Music, the Dance of Death, to kill the Gryphon!

“Azhure? Azhure? What is that you do?” he whispered in a voice papery-thin with fear, and he could feel StarDrifter s hand on his shoulder.

When Azhure replied her voice was flat and full of emptiness, making Axis recall the vast empty distances that lay between the stars he had seen in the Star Gate.

“What is this I do? I use the same Dark Music that was used to make this creature to unmake her. I unravel the enchantments that made her with the same powers.” She looked up and met Axis’ eyes — and Axis could see the stars circling in the great emptinesses of their depths.

“WolfStar!” StarDrifter gasped behind him, and Axis cried out. “No! No!”

But both the Enchanters, watching as the Gryphon was finally shredded to pieces by the power that enveloped it, remembered every single piece of evidence that indicted Azhure.

As one they remembered…Azhure walking graceful and confident along the rock ledge outside Talon Spike that any normal human would have fallen from in terror…Azhure s mastery of the Wolven…the Alaunt hounds, once WolfStar’s, who now answered only to her call…the call of her blood that both Axis and StarDrifter were unable to resist – SunSoar blood?…the ancient Icarii script that she had decorated the cufis of Axis’ golden tunic with — how had she known that?…her ability to hear (and use, StarDrifter whispered) the mind voice…the Star Music that Axis heard whenever he made love to her…the depth of Caelum’s Icarii blood, as if Azhure had contributed as well as Axis.,.the scars that rippled down Azhure’s back, as if wings had been torn out…she had first found MorningStar’s body, but had she killed her as well? And finally, the most damning of all, her easy use of the Dark Music. No Icarii Enchanter, and certainly no simple peasant girl, could use that.

“WolfStar,” Axis whispered, and then white-hot anger enveloped him so completely it overran and negated his horror. Had he spent his nights loving WolfStar?

As the Gryphon finally blew apart in a cloud of vaporised tissue and blood, Azhure blinked and the stars faded from her eyes. A tremor ran over her face, and she became aware of her surroundings.

“Axis?” she whispered. Why all this blood? Why was Axis staring at her like that?

The Gryphon! Memories of the Gryphon attack flooded in and Azhure cringed and hugged Caelum tight. Where was the Gryphon? There had been a pain, a pain in her head, and then everything had gone dark. Strange whispers had shouted words through her mind. Where was the Gryphon?

“Dead,” hissed Axis, and behind him StarDrifter’s face was as implacable and as cold as his son’s. “Dead, as you will be before long, WolfStar!”

It was not so much his words, although those were horrifying enough, but the tone in which he said them that tore Azhure’s soul apart. Why did he hate her? What had she done? As Axis tore Caelum from her arms Azhure automatically dissolved into the welcome blackness that had always served as a refuge during her childhood whenever Hagen had sprung at her with similar hatred on his face.

In her last moment of consciousness Azhure realised her worst nightmare had come true. Hagen was not dead at all. He had simply assumed the form of Axis.

“By all the stars in the universe,” the Dark Man screamed, “what have you done?”

Gorgrael backed up against a chair, almost falling over it. An instant previously, just as Gorgrael had felt the Gryphon blink out of existence, the Dark Man had materialised in Gorgrael s chamber deep in the heart of his ice fortress. He was insanely angry. Out-of-control angry.

And Gorgrael abruptly realised that an out-of-control Dark Man was a very, very, very, bad thing.

“Only a woman and a baby,” Gorgrael whispered, scrabbling to keep his balance as the chair started to slip under his weight. “Only a woman and a baby. I saw no harm in it.”

“No harm?” the Dark Man shouted. “No harm?”

Gorgrael thought he could see fire (or was it ice?) glinting somewhere in the depths of the Dark Man’s hood. His tongue lolled out of his mouth in fear.

“You could have killed her!” the Dark Man shrieked. “You could have killed her!” He advanced on Gorgrael, his black cloak billowing, yet revealing nothing of the man beneath.

“What concern of yours is the death of a single woman and child, Dark Man?” Gorgrael hissed in fury. “What concern of yours?”