Axis glanced at the Gate, curious about what lay on the other side of Death – the greatest mystery of all, and the opportunity to solve it lay only paces away. If WolfStar could come back through the Star Gate then perhaps he could somehow come back through this Gate if he walked through.
“If you wish, you can walk through, Axis SunSoar,” the woman said, and Axis noticed a ball in her hand. “But you will never come back. Never.” Her hand hovered over the second bowl.
“No.” Axis swung her hand away from the bowl. To his surprise her flesh was warm and soft. Was that his life she held in his hand? “I do not wish to go through.”
“Well,” the GateKeeper smiled and replaced the ball in the first bowl, “as you will. Now, tell me. Why do you think you can return this soul to life?”
Axis told her the story of FreeFall’s murder, of the promise the birdman had extracted from Axis as he lay dying. “FreeFall must wait among those souls who refuse to go through. Release him to me.”
“Ah,” the GateKeeper sighed melodramatically, her face softening into beauty once again, “it is a touching story you tell.” Her face hardened. “But no. No. No. No. No-one goes back once they are dead. Now, go away and leave me. FreeFall SunSoar will not return to the land of the living.”
“Damn you!” Axis gave in to his anger and disappointment. “Don’t you understand anything? FreeFall died well before his time. Murdered. I promised*. He believed me and now he waits for me! I cannot go back on my promise!”
Far below the Ferryman stirred resdessly.
“No,” the GateKeeper said again.
Axis tried one last time. “I was unable to save him from Borneheld, GateKeeper, please give me the chance to save him now!”
The GateKeeper’s lips formed the word “No”, then stopped at the last moment as the name Axis had mentioned sank in. “Borneheld? Is this Borneheld the one who is also Duke of Ichtar?” she inquired placidly, but Axis could see that her fingers trembled on the table.
“Yes, he is the Duke of Ichtar.”
“Ah,” the GateKeeper breathed. “I do not like the Dukes of Ichtar.”
Now her agitation was evident. She sat silently, deep in the memory of some wrong the Dukes of Ichtar had done her, her fingers shuffling up and down the table like wary spiders. Finally she spoke again, but now her voice quivered with repressed excitement.
“You have it in your power to right an injustice,” she said.
“As do you. Release FreeFall.”
“And you will help me to right the injustice done to me and mine?” the GateKeeper asked.
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Promise first.”
Axis hesitated, then nodded. “I agree. What is it I have to do to bring FreeFall back?”
The GateKeeper’s face collapsed in on itself until she resembled nothing more than a skull covered with a thin parchment of skin and a wig of stiff horsehair. “Listen,” she rasped.
Axis listened.
When she was done, Axis looked almost as cadaverous as she did. “Even Borneheld does not deserve that,” he whispered. “That is horrific. Barbarous.”
“You promised,” she hissed, “and even now I can exterminate FreeFall’s soul so that he will never know the existence that waits for him on the other side of the Gate.”
Axis had no choice. “Then you have a bargain, Gate-Keeper.”
“Remember, the conditions of the contract must be met within a year and a day of your returning to the OverWorld.”
“Yes, I remember. GateKeeper …”
“Yes?”
“Why do you request such a bargain?”
“It is required,” she said, calm once more.
Axis took a deep breath. “And FreeFall?”
“As I promised, StarMan, but you must keep your bargain, or the transformation will not complete itself and FreeFall will wither and die again.”
Suddenly Axis wanted to escape these worlds beneath the surface of the earth into warmth and life again.
“Well,” he finally said, “until we meet again, GateKeeper,” and he sketched a salute and marched back down the gravel-coated hill towards the Ferryman.
“Oh,” the GateKeeper smiled to herself, her face that of a beautiful young girl. “And that will be far sooner than you wish, StarMan.”
Her thoughts drifted as she tallied the never-ending shuffle of souls through the Gate. She hated and loathed the Dukes of Ichtar even more than Sigholt did. Zeherah was her daughter.
CaeluinM zhure twisted over to her side in the bed, hoping she Z-\ had not woken Rivkah. She desperately needed her JL _*~sleep for she had trained her archers hard today and was tired and sore, but no matter what she did she could not drift off. And tonight the baby lay heavy and uncomfortable in her womb. Despite the reassurances from EvenSong, Rivkah and MorningStar, Azhure still worried that for a six-months babe, the child was small and rarely moved.
Azhure sighed and eased herself out of the bed carefully, then padded silently across the floor to the door. She hesitated as she considered whether or not to take a wrap with her, but the Sigholt nights were so temperate that the linen of her nightgown would keep her warm enough. Sicarius rose and followed his mistress out the door. Leaving the silent corridors behind her, Azhure climbed the narrow staircase to the roof. A few minutes in the night air usually calmed her.
She sighed happily as she reached the deserted roof. A warm breeze blew off the Lake, and Azhure unbound her hair and shook it out. She gazed at the Lake of Life – a long soak in the steaming waters would be the perfect relaxant. But she could not be bothered with the walk. A stroll around the roof should do. Sicarius settled down by the doorway; there was little danger on the roof of Sigholt.
Azhure leaned over the waist-high wall and surveyed the sleeping camps. Around the northern shore of the Lake stretched the tents of the Skarabost refugees, now numbering several thousand. Azhure sighed as her eyes drifted over the faint lights of the camps. Vegetable gardens, although they helped, would not be enough if Sigholt were forced to live off its own resources.
She took a deep breath and held it. The wild gorse was flowering across the hills; already the HoldHard Pass was blossoming with new life as both plant and animal life crept along its length.
“Sigholt will prove the heart of the new Tencendor,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I am so glad that I am a part of this reawakening.”
Still with her eyes closed, Azhure turned and leaned her back against the waist-high wall. When she finally opened her eyes Axis was standing in the centre of the roof, staring at her.
He had said his goodbyes to Orr in the centre of the violet lake of the crystal cave as they bobbed gently in the flat-bottomed boat and then he’d transferred almost immediately, feeling the surge of the Star Dance through his body, revelling in its power. What would it be like to one day manipulate the entire Star Dance rather than the minute portion needed for this Song? Axis forced his thoughts back to Sigholt. How long had he been gone? Was all well?
He felt himself being drawn across a vast distance as if by an unseen hand. The closer he got to Sigholt, the faster he travelled, and Axis feared he would be slammed into its roof with such force that his bones would be crushed.
But just as that horrifying thought crossed his mind, his stomach lurched and he found himself standing on Sigholt’s roof, surrounded by darkness, the stars wheeling in their perpetual dance in the heavens above his head.
Confused, Axis thought he must have somehow transferred back in time to the vision he had seen of Rivkah, young, lovely and pregnant.
But the woman who turned to him was Azhure, not his mother. But like Rivkah, her waist was thickened with midterm pregnancy.
She opened her eyes, and they widened as she caught sight of him.
Axis opened his mouth, unsure what to say, when a deep and musical voice boomed about him. “Are you true?”
“Yes, dammit!” Axis snapped without thinking, and the bridge, offended, muttered grumpily to herself.
“Azhure? Azhure?” He took one step forward, then just stood and held out his hand.
Azhure stood motionless, still too shocked to move or speak. Somehow she had always thought Axis would stride in across the bridge, and Azhure would meet him serenely, invulnerable behind her uniform and her position as commander in his army. They would talk about the baby sensibly, adults discussing the unexpected outcome of their Beltide excess. They would come to a civilised and utterly mature arrangement whereby Axis would still love and teach his child but neither it nor Azhure would stand between him and Faraday. Indeed, Azhure could tell him about Belial’s proposal, which would solve all their problems, and Axis would be comforted that Belial could relieve him of this small embarrassment.