Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 2 – Enchanter

Encumbered with the baby, Faraday was able to restrain Ysgryff no longer. He leaned forward and literally hauled StarDrifter to his feet by the feathers on the back of his neck. “If he has destroyed her, StarDrifter, then by all the gods that live in the Temple of the Stars, I will destroy you}”

As Belial half rose to his feet, Ysgryff threw the shocked StarDrifter back onto the bench. “Personally, StarDrifter,” he said through clenched jaws, “I hope that one day WolfStar will appear and hurl both you and Axis into the Star Gate in one of his crazed experiments, because that is all you two deserve for what you have done to that woman.”

“Ysgryff, please,” Faraday said gently. “Restrain yourself. Belial, what happened below?”

Belial told her what he could. “But that’s all I know, Faraday. Not much. Azhure took Axis somewhere, showed him something, but I don’t know what. When they reappeared the skin was hanging off Azhure’s back in strips and Axis appeared half mad himself. He brought her up here and has allowed no-one in the chamber since. I think he will kill himself if Azhure dies – and even if she doesn’t, I think he will kill himself for what he has done to her.”

“Ysgryff, wait here,” Faraday said, turning to the Prince of Nor. “I think you will have more to do with solving this mystery than anyone else.”

She turned and walked towards the door.

“Faraday,” Rivkah began, concerned. The last person who had tried to go inside had been confronted with an Axis so furious and so wild that they had literally slammed the door behind them in their haste to get out.

“No,” Faraday smiled, her hand on the doorknob. “Axis will not throw out either myself or Caelum. Be calm. Wait.”

Then she twisted the doorknob and walked inside, closing the door gently behind her.

The chamber was dim, the windows shuttered. Faraday stood still, adjusting her eyes to the light. Finally a slight movement caught her eye.

Axis rose from where he had been kneeling by a bed along the far wall of the room, a bloodied rag in his hand. He did not say anything, just stared at Faraday with sunken and haunted eyes as she moved towards him.

Faraday reached the other side of the bed, hesitated slightly, then sat down, looking at the woman lying curled up on her side.

“Hello, Azhure,” she smiled, her face gentle. “My name is Faraday. I would we could have met in slightly happier circumstances.”

Azhure was conscious, her blue eyes wide and dark with pain. She stared at Faraday a moment, then gazed at her son.

“Caelum is well, but he is concerned for you, Azhure.”

Azhure reached out a trembling hand and touched Caelum. Faraday noted with concern how weak the woman was, how pale her skin, how it hung in loose, papery folds over her flesh. Azhure let her hand fall listlessly back to thebed. She was so weak and in so much pain that even her son could not interest her.

“You have made a mess of this, haven’t you Axis?” Faraday said, her voice low, turning her head to gaze levelly at Axis.

Axis sank to his knees on the other side of the bed. He had been sponging Azhure’s back with warm water, trying to stop the blood flow, but the water in the bowl was now deep red itself, and the flesh still hung in strips from Azhure s back. Bone showed in several places.

“I cannot help her,” Axis whispered. “I cannot heal. It is one of the things for which there is no Song. Faraday,” his voice broke, “do I have to wait for her to begin to die before I can help her?”

“Axis,” Faraday said, making her voice as firm as she could. “Take your son and go and sit in the corner of the room. I would spend some time alone with Azhure.”

Axis stood, dropped the bloodied rag back into the water, and reached over the bed for Caelum. The baby stiffened a little in Faraday’s arms.

Go to your father, Caelum. He needs comfort.

As she passed the baby over Faraday stared Axis hard in the eye. “Caelum needs to know what happened, Axis. If you don’t tell him then he will never trust you again. Now, go sit in the chair and talk to your son. Don’t disturb Azhure or myself.”

Axis nodded, cuddled Caelum to his chest, and walked slowly over to the distant chair, slumping down and murmuring to the baby.

Faraday reached down and took one of Azhure’s hands in both of hers, rubbing it with her thumbs, gently, soothingly. “Now,” she smiled. “I also need to know what happened. Tell me. Believe me, it will help if you talk about it.”

Her touch comforted Azhure, and slowly, very slowly, her words heavy and awkward, she began to tell Faraday what had happened that morning.

“Wait,” Faraday stopped her after only a few minutes. “Did you know what you were doing to that Gryphon?” Her thumbs continued to stroke the back of Azhure’s hand.

Azhure shook her head. “No. It attacked. I was terrified. I was sure that Caelum and I would die. I had…I had no weapons. It lunged for us, and I raised my arm to protect myself,” she lifted her free arm slightly to show Faraday the open tear that ran down the fleshy part of her lower arm, “and the creature tore into me with its beak. The pain, the terror, something…something broke inside of me. Something…opened. Faraday.” Her eyes widened, pleading for understanding. “I don’t know what I did! I am not WolfStar! Why should Axis think that I was? WhyV”Shush, sweetheart,” Faraday comforted, stroking the damp hair back from Azhure’s brow. Faraday quietly told Azhure what StarDrifter had told them outside, and Azhure stared disbelieving at the woman before her.

“Oh,” she said, inadequately. Had they doubted her that long?

“Azhure. What happened in the chamber below? I need to know, and you need to talk about it.”

Azhure was silent for a long time, but Faraday was patient, and waited, holding Azhure’s hand in one of hers, lifting the other to stroke the woman’s hair, soothing, calming, quieting. Eventually, Azhure began to speak.

She spoke of Axis’ anger, of his sudden revulsion, of his violence. It had reminded her, she said, of the man she had called her father, Hagen. She spoke of the nightmare that began on the top of Spiredore and continued in the interrogation chamber. Of the pain and the fear and the terrible aloneness she had felt when Axis had started to tear her mind apart in his efforts to find where WolfStar lurked.

And then the same thing that had happened when the Gryphon attacked. Something inside of her had…snapped. released.

“And it hasn’t completely closed even now, Faraday. I can still feel something in the darkness there, calling to me.”

“We will talk about that later,” Faraday said gently. “Just tell me what happened next.”

Azhure told Faraday of the vision she and Axis had shared. Of her mother’s horrible death at Hagen’s hands as he sought to discover the identity of Azhure’s father.

“I can remember so much now, Faraday,” Azhure whispered. “I remember that my wings had started to sprout some five or six weeks earlier. Mama had smiled and laughed when she saw them one day as she bathed me, and said they were a gift from my father, but she tried to hide them from Hagen. As they grew larger she would bind them to my back with a great linen bandage so my back would appear flat. But one day Hagen came home unexpectedly, and found me sitting on Mama’s lap, the bandages undone and my back exposed.”

Azhure’s eyes were dark with guilt. “Oh, Faraday! It was my fault! I had complained that the bandages itched, and Mama had taken them down to scratch my back.”

Faraday eyes filled with tears. “Go on.”

Haltingly, Azhure told of how Hagen had come at her with his knife, day after day, determined to cut any remnants of the wings from her back. “Weeks it went on,” Azhure whispered so low that Faraday had to bend down to hear her. “Weeks. Every morning Hagen would inspect my back. And if he saw anything…anything…that looked wing-like, then he simply cut it out.”

Faraday was appalled. “Didn’t the neighbours suspect? Didn’t they ask what was going on?”

Azhure shook her head. “Hagen told them that Mama had run away with a pedlar – he buried her body secretly one night – and that I was sick with a simple fever. Sometimes one of the village women would come in with food, but even if they saw the bloody bandages on my back, they never asked what was going on. They believed whatever Hagen told them.” She paused, then spoke again. “Even I came to believe the story that Mama had run off in the night with the pedlar. It was less painful, safer, believing that than the truth I had witnessed.”