Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 2 – Enchanter

“She is a concern of mine!” the Dark Man snarled.

“A single human woman and child, Dark Man?” Gorgrael said, advancing himself now, and the Dark Man retreated a step.

“You fool,” the Dark Man said quietly. “You may have undone everything now. Of all the people you had to set your Gryphon on you had to pick her. Of all the people.”

“She lives,” Gorgrael said, and peered as close as he could at the Dark Man. “She lives, and she destroyed the Gryphon. Is that not unusual for a human woman? To use the Dark Music to destroy my Gryphon? My beautiful pet? Who is she, Dark Man? What is she to cause you to storm my fortress in unconsidered rage? What is she?”

The Dark Man stared at Gorgrael. “She is exposed, now, Gorgrael. That is what she is. And, because of that, she may very well be dead.”

Azhure ( )

£ £ ~ |—’V y all the gods in creation,” Belial screamed as r~^ Axis raised his sword for the killing thrust, “what * -J are you doing?”

“She is a traitor!” Axis yelled back. “She is WolfStar!”

Belial stepped back, appalled both by the scene before him and by the power and anger that blazed from Axis’ eyes.

They were in one of the lower chambers of the palace -used, occasionally, as an interrogation chamber, and it was to this foul purpose that it was being put again.

Azhure, moaning in pain, was bound upright to a stone pillar, her head lolling on her shoulder. She was only barely conscious. Blood stained her nightgown in several places, and Belial could see that one of her legs had been heavily bruised. Mother knows what other contusions that nightgown is hiding, he thought distractedly.

“Damn you, Axis! Prove to me that she is this traitor! Prove if!” Belial shouted.

Axis stared at him, breathing heavily with effort and with rage. He shifted cold eyes to StarDrifter. “Shall we unmask the bitch?” His voice was as cold as his eyes.

“Best to kill her now, Axis.”

“No\” Belial screamed and grabbed Axis’ arm. “Prove to me that she is this traitor or, so help me Axis, I will raise every soldier I can to move against you!”

Axis swore viciously and threw the sword across the room. It hit a far wall and clattered to the floor. Apart from Azhure, there were only the three of them in the chamber. Belial had kept everyone else out.

“You want to see what she really is, Belial? You really want to see?” Axis snarled. He held Belial’s stare for a moment, then he dropped his eyes and stared at his Enchanter’s ring, twisting it slightly. StarDrifter scowled – what was Axis doing to the ring?

When Axis looked up again, his eyes were subtly different. He walked over to Azhure and twisted his hand in her hair, wrenching her head up so he could stare into her eyes.

She moaned again, and fear flickered across her face.

“I am going to unlock the traitor’s mind,” Axis said, his voice now so cold that Belial recoiled.

Music started to waft about the chamber. Harsh music. Music that StarDrifter at rst thought was Dark Music, but then realised was a combination of fire and air music that was discordant and twisted. It was a song that unlocked a mind’s secrets, but StarDrifter had never, never heard it before. It was a new Song.

“I am going to find out what secrets her dark soul hides,” Axis said, grating out his words through clenched teeth, “and I am going to prove to you, Belial, that this…this creature is the traitor who murdered MorningStar and who intended to betray me to Gorgrael!”

A moment later Azhure screamed, her body convulsing, and she continued to scream as Axis tore her mind apart.

“Oh, gods,” Belial whispered, appalled. He turned away, unable to watch, wishing that he could stop his ears as well, wishing that he had the courage to attack Axis and stop him from killing Azhure.

“He is sifting through her mind,” StarDrifter said calmly. “Sifting through her memories. Searching for the key that will unlock her true identity.”

Several minutes passed, and the intensity of Azhure’s screams, if anything, deepened. Her body strained against the ropes so desperately that they burned through material and skin, and Belial, on the one occasion he found the heart to look, saw blood seep through to stain the white linen wherever the ropes pressed against her body.

“Ah!” Axis suddenly exclaimed in satisfaction. “I have found it!”

“What?” StarDrifter asked, stepping a little closer.

“A block. A shuttered grate. A welded door. A block. Behind this, StarDrifter, lies the true Azhure. Shall I open it?”

“Can you?” StarDrifter asked. “Is it possible? Should we?” What if WolfStar lurked behind that block, waiting to leap out? “Perhaps it is best to kill her now, Axis. It is enough to know the block is there.”

“No, no,” Axis grunted. “Belial wants proof. Well, he shall have it. Wait. I almost have it.”

His face tightened in concentration and effort and the strength of the music doubled. Azhure abruptly stopped screaming and simply stared into Axis’ eyes, so close to her own.

“Ah,” Axis whispered, his hand still tangled deep in her hair. “I almost have you…almost…almost…therel It is gone!”

Suddenly his eyes widened, startled, horrified, staring at something that StarDrifter and Belial could not see. “Oh gods,” he whispered, and then, without a sound, both he and Azhure vanished.

He was enveloped by her power, by the pure power of the Stars, and by some spark of compassion left within her, she did not let it immediately crush him. But she was also still caught in his enchantment – both were – and she was compelled to show him her secrets. All of them. Even those she had repressed and hidden in this dark hole of her mind because to let them free would have driven her mad. She opened her eyes and began to see. Began to see with the eyes of a five-year-old child. And Axis saw with her.

The eyes blinked and opened. Blinked yet again, and opened wider. They saw the interior of the Plough-Keepers home in Smyrton. It was a well-kept home, well furnished. The Plough-Keeper, Hagen, did well for himself.

It was early evening, and lamps and the fire burned merrily. A meal was set out on the table, but the food lay untouched on thick white plates. The eyes belonged to a little girl, and she was crouched in the furthest corner from the fireplace. She did not like the fireplace.

That was where Hagen was intent on the murder of her mother. He had her prone on the hearth, her head dangerously close to the fire. Kneeling astride her body, Hagen gripped the woman’s throat with his hands.

“Whore!” he screamed. “/ did not father that aberration cringing in the corner, did I? Did I? Who, woman? Who?” And he thrust her beautiful head a little further into the fire.

Her hair was raven blue-black, and thickly coiled about her head. The Axis part of the mind that watched through the eyes in the corner saw that her face, even distorted with terror and marked by violence as it was, was very beautiful, her eyes a deep and mysterious blue, her skin creamy smooth in places, but blackened and burned in others. And soon her hair would go up in flames.

“Who?” Hagen roared, again driving her head yet further towards the flames and the coals, and Axis cringed in horror. Was this Hagen driving Azhure’s mother into the flames, or was it he, driving Azhure to her death?

“Azhure, hear me!” the woman screamed, knowing she was near death. “Hear me! This man is not your father!”

“/know that!” Hagen yelled, “/know that. Ever since I saw those feathers sticking out of the girl’s back this afternoon, the feathers that you have been binding for weeks now, trying to hide them from me, ever since that moment I have known she was not my daughter. Who? Who?”

“Azhure!” And the woman screamed, for in a burst of crackling her hair had caught fire. “Azhure,” as the flames engulfed her head, “Azhure! You are a child of the gods. Seek the answer on Temple Mount! Ah!” Her hands beat frantically at Hagen’s fingers clenched about her throat, desperately seeking release from the torment that engulfed her.

“Azhure!” her voice crackled horrifyingly from the ball of flame that now engulfed her entire head. “Live! Live! Your father. Ah! Azhure…Ah! Your father…Ahl”

Whatever she had been trying to say was lost in the expanding ball of flame. His own hands singed, Hagen recoiled, and for a moment or two the woman’s hands beat ineffectually at the flames licking at the edges of her linen collar. An instant later her entire bodice had gone up, and the instant after that her skirts erupted in a roar of flame.