Something snapped inside Timozel’s mind. He threw all caution and cunning and training to the wind and gave in to his hatred of the man who now stood so close to him . . .
. . . almost as close as your mother once lay with me …
. . . and let his sword clatter to the floor, reaching with both hands for Axis’ throat.
“I thought,” Axis grunted, leaning to one side and letting Timozel step forward, “‘how would I ever tell Embeth if her son was skewered on the wrong end of five handspans of sharpened steel?'”
And he ran Jorge’s sword through Timozel’s belly.
As soon as he felt the blade break the skin of Timozel’s back he released his grip and stepped back.
Timozel let out a great explosive breath of surprise and sank to his knees, his hands clutched about the hilt of the sword rammed into his body.
“Of course,” Axis said, his face and voice expressionless, “the question was purely rhetorical, because as far as I am concerned you are now skewered on precisely the right end of five handspans of sharpened steel. Do you recognise it,
Timozel?” Now his face twisted. “Do you? It is Jorge’s sword, Timozel, and I swore as I drew it from his body that I would find it a more fitting resting place.”
Timozel slowly tipped over onto his side, steaming blood pooling in widening circles about him.
How could it end like this?
How could it end… ?
How…?
Axis stood, breathing heavily, looking at Timozel’s body. He had loved and nurtured this man from a baby; had treasured him because he was Embeth and Ganelon’s son; had taken as much pride in his achievements as his parents had.
He tried to feel some sorrow for Timozel’s death, but could feel none.
Timozel had betrayed him…and he had undoubtedly betrayed Faraday.
Axis looked down the corridor to where Arne stood holding his cloak.
“Faraday.”
The Music of the Stars He lifted the Rainbow Sceptre from his weapon belt and strode towards Arne. Nothing mattered now but that he find Gorgrael – and Faraday.
He brushed past Arne, who fell silently into step behind his StarMan.
The maze of ice corridors no longer confused or disorientated Axis. The Sceptre felt warm in his hands, and he thought he could feel a slight pulse grow in its rod. His feet echoed through the Ice Fortress, and somewhere in its depths Axis felt, if not heard, a scream.
It was his brother, calling to him.
The length of his stride increased. Nothing existed except for the need to reach Gorgrael. It was as if Prophecy pulled him through the Ice Fortress, and when he turned a corner and entered a long ice corridor with a massive wooden door at its end he could feel Prophecy reach ice-hot talons into his entrails and tug, pull, haul him along the corridor’s length.
Only when he stood at the very door itself did Axis remember Arne at his back. He turned so swiftly, so suddenly, that Arne found himself pinned against an ice wall, Axis’ hand to his throat, before he could draw breath.
“Stay here!” Axis snarled, his face twisted in rage.
Arne knew the rage was not directed at him, but rather at whatever waited beyond that door.
He nodded.
“Stay here,” Axis repeated, his voice calmer now. “The Prophecy does not require your presence in that chamber. The Prophecy does not require your death!”
His voice had risen again, and Arne nodded.
“I want someone to survive this,” Axis said, then let Arne go-Axis took a deep breath, his eyes still locked into Arne’s,
and Arne glimpsed some of the emotion that roiled within the man.
“I will watch the door,” he said. “And hold your cloak.” For some reason Axis’ eyes filled with tears at Arne’s words. “And pray for me and the Lady Faraday. Will you do that also?”
Arne nodded yet again, and tears glinted in his own eyes.
“Yes.”
Axis stood before the door, the Rainbow Sceptre in one hand, the other on the door handle. He breathed deeply, slowly, calming his thoughts, concentrating. He knew the third verse of the Prophecy. He knew it contained both the key to his destruction and the key to his survival. He had the means to destroy Gorgrael, but only if he maintained his concentration.
And Gorgrael knew it too. The Destroyer would do everything in his power to destroy that concentration.
Axis concentrated on the Star Dance, on its beautiful music, and let it ripple through him. He thought of Azhure and Caelum, and of their love, and let it support him.
Then he turned the handle, opened the door, and entered the chamber to meet his brother.
The door swung softly shut behind him.
Gorgrael stood ten or twelve paces away, perhaps standing before a fire, for Axis had a dim impression of some light glowing and leaping behind him.
He was as disgusting as Axis remembered from the cloud in the skies above the Ancient Barrows, and his presence was as evil and as putrid as Axis remembered from the nightmares his brother had tormented him with most of his life.
Gorgrael’s face was twisted into a snarl, his lips pulled back from his canine teeth, his tongue lolling over his chin. Behind him, his wings were outstretched, their talons glinting.
Strangely, the overriding emotion that Axis felt seep towards him was envy.
Axis did not understand how he looked from Gorgrael’s perspective – how confident, how golden, how princely. He was everything that Gorgrael had ever desired to be, and now he stood before the Destroyer, his faded blue eyes calm, his body relaxed and assured.
Axis did not realise how Gorgrael felt because all Axis could see from behind the mask of his concentration was Faraday.
Faraday – held fast by Gorgrael’s clawed hands, one sunk deep into the flesh of her throat, the other clasped tight about her belly.
Faraday – her once-beautiful gown hanging from her in tatters, her flesh marked and bruised.
Faraday – her face towards him, her eyes at first dull with pain and fear and then – to Axis’ horror – brightening with hope and pleading and love.
Axis breathed deep, keeping his face calm, maintaining his concentration.
“I greet you wellj brother,” Gorgrael hissed.
Axis inclined his head, and took a step towards Gorgrael -no further, because he saw Gorgrael’s claws dig deeper at even that one step. “And I you, Gorgrael.”
“Finally,” Gorgrael said, and his body wriggled a bit. “Finally we meet here, you and I. As the Prophecy said we would.”
Axis ignored him, his eyes travelling curiously about the chamber, although he saw nothing. “Is be not here to help you?”
“He?” Gorgrael tilted his head to one side. “He?”
“Your friend,” Axis said. “WolfStar.”
Gorgrael shuffled in his confusion, and he wondered what sort of trick this was. “WolfStar?”
“The man who taught you, Gorgrael.”
“The Dark Man?”
Suitable, thought Axis, very suitable indeed. “The man who taught me also.”
“No!” Gorgrael hissed, and Faraday moaned involuntarily as his claws tightened. “No/”
“Yes, indeed, brother. I walked ready trained into this Prophecy, and it was not my…our…father who trained me.”
Gorgrael thought of all the times the Dark Man had gone, disappeared, sometimes for many months. Had he spent that time training Axis? He thought of all the times the Dark Man had appeared, knowing exactly what Axis was thinking, what he was doing. Had he known because he had just left Axis, perhaps after an amusing dinner and light-hearted chat?
And WolfStar?
“The most powerful of the Enchanter-Talons,” Axis said. “I think he had this planned from the beginning, don’t you? When, do you think, did he conceive this Prophecy for his own amusement? When did he begin to put the pieces in place? We are only pawns for his enjoyment, Gorgrael, nothing else. The Prophecy is nothing but idiot gabble for no reason other than babble and confusion.”
Gorgrael screeched, and Faraday screamed with him, but Axis let none of this penetrate his concentration.
“The puppets mouth their words, make their moves, all to his direction. Doubtless the old grey wolf watches now, from some safe distance, and claps and chortles.”
Axis took another step forwards, and this time Gorgrael was so wrapped in thoughts of the Dark Man’s treachery and manipulation that he did not notice.
“Who do you think he wants to win, Gorgrael? You…or me? What does the script say, do you think? Who has he backed?”
Another step, and Axis’ hand firmed about the Rainbow Sceptre.
“I do not care,” he continued, “because / intend to win -against you and against WolfStar, your Dark Man.”
Gorgrael’s head whipped up and he realised how close Axis had crept.
He hissed, low and sibilant.
Faraday screamed.
Axis’ concentration wavered, and for an instant a look of agony swept across his face.