Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

woke to find herself surrounded by hundreds of tiny pots. If not for the cart, she would never have been able to carry them.

Faraday spent all day and most of the twilight hours transferring the seedlings into mortal land. She moved in a daze, sometimes not truly sure what she was doing, sometimes almost completely disorientated and detached, relying on the strength of the Mother to give her the heart to keep going.

She planted the seedlings far apart, usually at least a hundred paces, in a great swathe from the eastern edge of the Silent Woman Woods. She would stumble along, often holding onto the mane of one of the donkeys with a bleeding hand for support, until instinct and the cry of a seedling told her the time was right.

Calling to the donkeys to stop, Faraday would reach for the seedling that cried out, and sink to her knees on the ground. Her fingers aching with the need to dig, she would set the seedling to one side while she scratched frantically into the hard-packed soil. Then, her fingers bloodied and bruised, she would gently tip the seedling out of her pot, speaking softly to her, calling her by name, encouraging her to find the strength to grow tall and strong, telling her that her wait was ending, and that the final transformation was at hand.

Once Faraday had patted the soil about the seedling she would reach for the wooden bowl which rested on the back of the tray, and was constantly filled with life-giving emerald water. Although where it came from Faraday did not know, for she never filled it herself. Carefully, she would pour a few drops over the seedling and about its base, singing the Song with which she and StarDrifter had woken the Earth Tree so long ago, when the Avarinheim groves had been under attack by the Skraelings.

Faraday prayed the strength of the Earth Tree could reach this far south and somehow infuse will and strength into her tiny daughter. Then, for some minutes, she would kneel and look at the seedling, waving bravely in the cold wind of the northern Tarantaise plains. The plant looked so small, so vulnerable, that she often wondered if the seedlings would survive their first critical months.

And how long would they take to grow? Faraday was no gardener, but she knew that trees took almost a human lifetime to stretch their branches to the sky. Did she have a lifetime to wait for the Enchanted Wood to take root and thrive? Did Axis? Did Tencendor?

Then she would sigh and struggle to her feet, and leave the seedling humming quietly to herself as she stumbled further and further north.

The end of the day was always the worst. It took Faraday till twilight to plant all the seedlings for the day. Yet when she looked back to the land that she had planted, she could see nothing but the waving grasses of the desolate plains. Somewhere out there were several hundred seedlings, several thousand after two weeks, yet Faraday could not see them, and even their gentle humming had long ago been lost in the lonely plains behind her.

Were they still there? Would they survive the cold nights? The driving rain of the not-so-distant winter? The covering of several handspans of unforgiving snow?

Faraday had thought the planting would bring her more joy. But there were only ever the rolling plains and the constant pain in her fingers and back and legs. And, in the morning, several hundred more seedlings waving gently at her as she opened her exhausted eyes.

Two weeks after Faraday began planting she reached the semicircle of the Ancient Barrows. This was one of the most sacred sites of the Icarii, and Faraday knew that she would likely find an encampment of Enchanters here. It was also where she had first told Axis she loved him, where her mother, Merlion, had died, where Jack and Yr had spirited her away from the man she loved to the husband who had taken so much

of her spirit and her youth. It was, she mused, a place of death, and not only because of the tombs of the twenty-six Enchanter-Talons.

For three days she planted in a circle about the Barrows, ignoring the Icarii who flew overhead and who, respecting her wishes and her mission, left her alone. Then, finally, late one evening, she entered the Barrows.

She had not known what to expect. The massive Barrows still stretched in a crescent from south to north, but they had been cleared of much of their undergrowth so that their lines rose even more starkly into the night sky. An aura of power and spirituality hung over them in the twilight, so that the air almost hummed. But what instantly caught Faraday’s eye was the column in the very centre of the hollow between the Barrows. A slender obelisk of twisted bronze, erected by the Icarii, soared into the night sky, so high that Faraday had to crane her neck to follow its path to the stars. At its apex rested a large shallow bowl, from which seared a blue flame that leaped and flickered in the dark – during the day it was almost invisible.

“Faraday?” a gentle voice said behind her, and she turned reluctantly.

An Icarii Enchanter stood there, his white-blond hair and pale blue wings reflecting the shadows of the blue flame. “My name is StarRest SoarDeep,” he said, taking her hands in his. “The Enchantress sent word that you would pass this way and asked us to watch for you.”

His eyes darkened in concern as he saw the circles of weariness under Faraday’s eyes and felt the scabs and abrasions on her fingers. “You are tired,” he said.

Faraday straightened her back with an effort and tried to smile. “As would you be, StarRest, if you spent your days on your knees planting out seedling after seedling.”

“It goes well?” StarRest could sense that she did not want his concern or his pity.

Faraday shrugged. “Well enough. I plant where I must, and I sing to the seedlings.” She smiled again, more genuinely this time. “They are pleased to finally escape their cribs, StarRest.”

He let her hands go and indicated a small campfire close to one of the Barrows. “Will you share our meal with us, Faraday? And perhaps the Healer with us can look at your hands.”

Faraday clenched her hands by her side. “I will eat with you, StarRest, and be glad of the company, but my hands are well enough. They do not need attention.”

StarRest did not press the issue. “Then come. We are not many, but we are cheerful enough company.”

They joined the small encampment of some ten or twelve Icarii, and Faraday sank gratefully down by the fire after StarRest had introduced her to the other Enchanters. She stretched her hands out to the warmth, and the Icarii winced when they saw them, but, following StarRest’s lead, they said nothing. For a while they talked of inconsequential things as they passed bowls of food about, then, as Faraday set her almost untouched bowl to one side, she asked them what they did at the Barrows.

“At the Barrows itself, very little,” replied one of the Enchanters, a small birdwoman with exquisite features and flame-coloured hair. “As you have seen, we erected the beacon over the location of the Star Gate, and we have cleaned many of the Barrows, but that is all we want to do for the time being.” “My mother is buried here,” Faraday said quietly. StarRest shared a glance of concern with his colleagues. “Really? We did not know. There is evidence of graves here…the StarMan once told us he lost a number of his men to a Gorgrael-driven tempest in this place.”

“Yes. My mother died in that same storm. She must be buried with them.”

“Then we will pray over the graves for your mother, Faraday Tree Friend, and wish her peace in the AfterLife.”

Touched, Faraday watched the blue flame flicker far above them for a few minutes, thinking of her mother. “The flame reminds me of the blue shadows that chase across the vault above the Star Gate,” she said eventually.

“You have seen the Star Gate?” StarRest asked, startled.

Faraday turned her head towards him. “Yes. Two of the Sentinels took me to the Star Gate two years ago. We went through . . . through …”

She looked about her, her eyes straining in the night, then pointed to one of the shadowy Barrows that had collapsed at one end. “We went through that Barrow, then down the stairwell to the Star Gate.”

The Enchanters looked troubled. “The ninth,” one said under his breath.

Now it was Faraday’s turn to look surprised. “That was WolfStar’s Barrow?” she asked, and StarRest nodded. Then his manipulations go deeper than any realised, Faraday thought.