Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

StarDrifter indicated to one side and Azhure saw that the Nine stood in a close group behind the circle of the Enchanters, their heads bowed in prayer or meditation.

“They will witness,” StarDrifter said, “for only Enchanters can participate in the lighting of the Temple of the Stars.

“Azhure.” He looked her in the eye. “Whatever happens, do not be afraid. You will be safe. Whatever happens.”

She nodded, feeling a thrill of both fear and excitement, and Caelum squirmed anxiously in her arms. StarDrifter smiled and stroked the boy’s hair. “You have been born to witness great wonders, Caelum. I hope this will be but the first for you.”

Then, abruptly, he left them, striding about the circle, meeting each of the Enchanters’ gaze, communicating with them at some level that Azhure could not yet discern.

There was complete silence about the circle and from the thousands of watchers, and Azhure could faintly hear the crashing waves far below.

Azhure? Azhure? Is that you? Above them the stars reeled.

StarDrifter continued to walk about the circle, but his stride was now slower, and his head was bowed – but still his wings arched behind him. As his steps slowed he walked closer and closer to the centre of the circle.

Azhure realised that the encircling Enchanters were singing. The words and music were so soft that Azhure could not distinguish them, although she heard enough to know they sang in the sacred language of the Icarii. It was fluid music, mingling with the cry of the waves below, and for the first time in months Azhure felt revitalising energy flowing through her. She took a deep breath and smiled.

Caelum looked up at his mother in awe. StarDrifter’s steps were very slow now, his head still bowed, and he was close enough for Azhure to see that his eyes were closed. He was silent, listening, but his fingers flexed slightly at his side, and the muscles of his shoulders and back quivered.

The Song about them deepened, intensified, grew more emotional. Both Caelum and Azhure quivered with its power, and the stars above blurred momentarily.

StarDrifter had stepped behind them and suddenly, shockingly, he seized Azhure’s shoulders and gave a great cry that sent waves of power rippling through her. She gasped and would have fallen had it not been .for StarDrifter’s hands gripping her. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that StarDrifter now stood straight, his head thrown back, his eyes open and staring at the firmament above.

His wings flared behind him, and the brief thought crossed Azhure’s mind that he was going to try to lift her and Caelum into the air.

But then a movement about the circle caught her eye and she forgot StarDrifter in an instant. Every one of the encircling Enchanters had spread their wings, their tips touching those of their neighbours, and had thrown back their heads in the same manner as StarDrifter, lifting their arms joyously to the sky. Then StarDrifter began to sing.

Azhure had heard him sing before, most notably in the Assembly Chamber in Talon Spike, but that had been only a fraction of his power.

Now she heard all of it. Its sheer loveliness rocked her, and she cried out, feeling StarDrifter’s fingers bite painfully into her shoulders, feeling his power flood through her. She dimly comprehended that he gripped her for only one reason – to anchor both of them in the torrent of power that he now let free.

Azhure felt his power surround and penetrate her, felt and heard his Song seize and uplift her, and then she heard, and felt, every one of the Enchanters take up the Song also, and let their power flood the circle of marble.

She moaned, thinking she did not have the strength to bear it.

Then, just as she thought she could take no more, the Song abruptly ended, although Azhure could still feel power flooding about the circle.

“Wait,” StarDrifter whispered behind her. “Wait…wait . . . wait. . .”

And then he laughed and let her go, spinning about the circle on feet as light as breath. “Feel it!” he cried. “Feel it!”

As quickly as he had left her he was behind her again, although this time he did not touch her.

“Feel it,” he said again, his voice now flat.

And indeed Azhure could feel it. A tingling on the soles of her bare feet, a gossamer touch along the skin of her bare arms.

“It lives,” StarDrifter said, again curiously tonelessly. “The Temple lives.”

The circle of marble, which Azhure had thought so dull and uninspiring, now began very, very gently to glow a deep violet. Azhure could see its faint glow reflected on Caelum’s face and on the faces of the Enchanters. When she turned her head slightly, she could see that the glow flowed so smoothly over StarDrifter’s pale colouring that he seemed to absorb the light. Then the marble underfoot disappeared. She cried out and would have fallen in shock had not StarDrifter seized her shoulders again. There was nothing below her feet now but the violet glow. Not only could Azhure not see anything, she could feel nothing below her feet. “StarDrifter!”

“It is all right,” he whispered. “You are safe.” Then the violet glow flickered, dimmed for a heartbeat, and then . . . then the entire circle became a vast cauldron of cobalt light that throbbed with power. As Azhure looked down she saw stars circling below her feet, and when she finally looked up, she realised that the circle of light speared skyward in an immense pillar of power . . . and that the stars circled above her and about her as well.

They were standing – or floating? – in the centre of a beacon whose power Azhure could not even begin to comprehend, and through this beacon floated the stars.

She wept with the beauty of it. Stars drifted close, so close she could feel their burning power although their heat did not singe her. Wind tugged at her hair, and she knew it to be the wind of their passing. Music consumed her, and she knew it to be the full beauty of the Star Dance.

“I have to be so careful,” StarDrifter whispered behind her, “not to let it consume me.”

She knew what he meant. The power of the Star Dance was so close here that if either had wished it, they could have let its full power envelop them.

For a long time they stood, the other Enchanters floating with them, all participating in the ultimate worship of the Stars.

Here is where we used to come to study and understand and worship, StarDrifter’s voice echoed through her, and now we can again. Behold, the Temple of the Stars,

After a long, long while, StarDrifter pulled Azhure and Caelum to the edge of the beacon and they stepped beyond its walls.

Outside the thousands who had come to witness stood, awed, and Azhure looked over her shoulder as StarDrifter led her slowly down the grassy slope. From the outside the Temple was beautiful – although not as beautiful as it was from inside -the great column of light shooting into the firmament, stars dancing in its midst.

“We will let it stand unquenched,” StarDrifter said as she halted. “As it did in ages past. Let Gorgrael see it from his cold northern fortress and know the power of the Star Dance. Let the remnants of the Brotherhood of the Seneschal see it and know that the Icarii have reclaimed their homeland.”

She trembled and his arm tightened about her. “Will the others go inside?” she asked. She could dimly see the shape of some of the Enchanters floating in the Temple.

“None but Enchanters can go inside and survive the power that the Temple contains,” he said.

Azhure’s eyes widened. “But I… I…”

“/ never doubted you, nor what you are,” StarDrifter said. “And neither did the Temple.”

All the Enchanters at the Ancient Barrows were looking towards the south-west, their eyes straining, and they could feel,

if not see, the great beacon that was the Temple of the Stars leap into the night.

All were above ground, none were present in the Chamber of the Star Gate to witness.

The blue shadows that chased each other across the vaulted dome above the Star Gate swayed, leapt, then intensified in both hue and movement. The alabaster statues surrounding the Gate turned deep purple in the intensifying light. Music so powerful the entire Chamber vibrated coursed from the Star Gate.

And then, as both music and light exploded about the Chamber, seven laughing figures stepped through the Gate. Stepped through from the Stars.

A man first, and he turned to help a woman. Then five others, two women and three men. As the last stepped onto the floor of the Chamber both light and music swelled, then died completely.