Timozel drained his glass. “He is very dark.”
For some reason Gorgrael thought that extremely witty and roared with laughter.
After a moment his laughter died away. “But, untrustworthy or not, I cannot deny the fact that Prophecy brings Faraday to me. She must be the Lover. She must be!”
Timozel thought about that. “Who else? This dark woman?”
Gorgrael snarled at Timozel, his good mood evaporating under the sun of his uncertainty. “Faraday must be, Timozel!”
“The dark woman was very powerful.”
Gorgrael growled, remembering the night she had appeared in this chamber.
“And certainly very beautiful. She might make a good Lover.”
Gorgrael’s claws scraped along the armrests of his chair. “She is nothing to the Prophecy! Where is she mentioned in it?”
Timozel frowned, reciting the Prophecy in his head. “I cannot think -”
“Quite!” Gorgrael cried. “She’s not at all! And yet Faraday is in there at every turn; the woman who planted out the age-old souls from their cribs, the wife who lay with the slayer of her husband. Obviously Axis’ Lover.”
“True. I saw them myself.”
“Yes. Timozel?”
“Yes?”
“Timozel, would she trust you?”
“Yes,” Timozel answered slowly, “if I gave her enough reason to, then, yes, I think she would.”
Gorgrael smiled. “Good.”
Tundra
Axis shouted, argued, pleaded and even threatened, but Faraday stood quietly and let him rave. “I am coming, too,” she said once he’d finished.
Axis had turned to the five Avar, but they stood quietly, politely. It was Tree Friend’s business if she came or not, and it was not for them to dissuade her.
Shra was upset, but neither did she try to dissuade Faraday.
So Axis capitulated, but he was afraid for her.
They travelled light. All had cloaks, but they were a strange sight. Axis strode wrapped in his crimson cloak, golden tunic beneath; Faraday wrapped in a green cloak over the insubstantial robe that the Mother had given her; her only other clothing was some soft leather boots. Arne was the most sensibly dressed, with his stout boots and thick felt clothes, but the Avar men managed well enough in their tunics and leggings, although their boots hardly coped with the snow and ice when they hit the tundra.
Surprisingly, Arne got on quite well with the Avar men. Perhaps there was something in his dour personality that Erode and his companions related to, or perhaps it was that Arne appreciated the woodcraft and tracking skills that the forest men demonstrated. Whatever, he spent most of the days and the evenings talking quietly with one or more of the Avar men.
From the Earth Tree Grove they travelled north-east through the forest. Three of the men carried packs with light supplies of food, but Brode said they could scavenge well enough while in the forest, and once on the tundra there would likely be snow rabbits and birds they could catch for their supper.
At night Arne would help the Avar build two small fires; he shared one with the Avar, Axis and Faraday sat at the other.
For their first evening Axis and Faraday sat in virtual silence. They shared the food Brode handed them, their conversation desultory, and then sat in silence, watching the flames crackle. There was so much that Axis wanted to say to Faraday, but he did not know where to start. He thought about telling her some amusing stories about Caelum, then decided that might not be a good idea. He wondered if he could tell her some of his adventures in the west, but too many of them included Azhure, and while Axis knew that Faraday and Azhure were good friends, he still did not feel comfortable talking of Azhure to her.
I have built so many barriers between us, he thought sourly, pushing at the embers with the toe of his boot. Once we could have talked and laughed…but once she believed the lies that I told her.
Damn it, man! he berated himself, talk to her! He opened his mouth, but just at that moment Faraday rose gracefully, silently, and walked into the nearby bushes.
Axis dropped his eyes quickly. No doubt she was attending to her private needs and would not appreciate his curious eyes following her. But after half an hour he became worried, and asked Arne and Brode if either had seen which way she went.
Arne shrugged and pointed to the spot in the bushes where she had disappeared. “There, StarMan.”
Axis fidgeted, his eyes dark with worry.
“She is of the trees, StarMan,” Brode remarked. “She will find her way home.”
But Brode’s comment did not appease Axis. He paced about the fire, then, his cloak swirling, pushed into the bushes.
He wandered for perhaps half an hour, calling Faraday’s name, growing more desperate by the minute. Had she fallen and hurt herself? Had Gorgrael, by some dark art, managed to snatch her from the very forest itself? Then, just as he was about to return and stir the others into searching the forest, she was behind him. “Axis, shush, you will wake half Tencendor.”
“Where have you been?” he cried, seizing her by the shoulders.
She tensed, and Axis let her go. “I have been safe, Axis. Do not be concerned for me.”
And she would say no more. She returned to the fire, rolled herself in her cloak, and fell asleep.
Axis stood a long time, staring at her deep in sleep. Then he, too, settled down for the night, but it was a long time before he fell asleep. Occasionally he would reach out and touch the Sceptre by his side, but mostly he stared across the fire at Faraday, his eyes haunted with memories and guilt.
In the morning she rose early and again disappeared for almost an hour.
This time Axis managed to stay his fears, although he relaxed visibly when she finally returned. She snatched a few mouthfuls of food, then smiled at the men. “I’m ready.”
And so they set off.
Faraday did this every morning and every evening. When she returned she always had a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and sometimes the smile broadened when she saw Axis, and her green eyes would gleam with a secret emotion that he could not fathom.
“We all have to eat,” she said on the one occasion when Axis managed to force her to say anything about her absences at all.
The journey was easy through the Avarinheim, but cold, bleak weather met them the day they reached the forest’s northern border. They stood among the last ranks of the trees for almost
half an hour, watching the snow drift across the flat tundra. To their left, the Icescarp Alps rose in waves to the west, and Axis spared them a long look, but to the north and east there was nothing but flat snow land.
“Does anyone know how far this stretches?” Axis asked the Avar.
Loman, of the BareHollow Clan, answered him. “No, StarMan. No-one knows. Who would travel this distance from the trees?”
Axis cursed himself for not asking the Ravensbundmen if they had been this far.
“It is just flat snow, StarMan,” Erode said quietly. “Flat snow to the north and, if you were to walk far enough to the west or east, rolling grey seas that stretch into infinity.”
“And how are you going to find Gorgrael?” Axis thought he could feel an infinitesimal pull at his soul, as if a tiny claw worried at it, but the feeling was directionless and, apart from heading north, Axis had no idea where to go.
“We will know,” Brode said, with certainty, but when Axis glanced at him he could see lines of worry about the man’s eyes.
When Brode saw him looking, he shrugged, trying to make light of his concern. “It is the trees, StarMan. None of us have ever spent much, if any, time away from them. Only the Banes have travelled south to Fernbrake Lake, and their power enabled them to live for so long without the shade above them.”
“Come,” Faraday said, “we waste time,” and she set off alone into the northern wastes. Axis hurried after her, the Sceptre safely in his arm, and behind him came Arne and the Avar.
Gorgrael spied the small group with his mind’s eye the moment they had left the trees and set foot on the tundra.
“There they are!” he crowed, and shared the vision with Timozel. “There they are!”
He turned to Timozel standing by the doorway. “Go now, and do not fail me.”
Timozel nodded curtly, and then was gone.
And so they went on. The wind was fierce, but it did not hinder them too badly, and the snow was cold, but it was compacted down into a relatively easy walking surface.
The cold and the snow reminded Axis of Gorken Pass.
“We might find Timozel out here somewhere, Faraday,” he said.
Faraday blinked. She had not thought of Timozel in a very long time. Poor Timozel. What had happened to him since he had fled Carlon so long ago?