Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

Zeherah shook her head. “No. Look, the southern shore of the Lake is deserted. It will do us well enough.” She rose and turned to watch the other four struggle to their feet. Her eyes lingered on Jack. He had always been so proud, so vital, his shoulders broad and strong enough to carry the cares of all five. Now he trembled and gasped for breath, and though Zeherah yearned to step back and put her arms about his shoulders, she kept her distance and let Yr help him.

Slowly they started down towards the Lake in the dim light, Zeherah several paces in the lead, the others struggling as best

they could. Each was careful not to put a foot astray on the slope – a broken limb now might yet mean the breaking of the Prophecy.

It was full night when they reached their destination and the darkness clung heavily about them. When they finally stopped by the gentle red waters of the Lake of Life they turned to stare at the Silent Woman Keep for some minutes.

“Something is not right,” Ogden muttered, clinging to his brother’s robe as support.

“Wrong,” agreed Veremund.

Even Zeherah ignored the lure of the Lake and scrutinised the Keep carefully. “It has the feel…” she hesitated, furrowing her brow in concentration, “it has the feel of subtlety about it.”

“Subtlety?” Jack queried, not sure he had heard aright.

She shifted, trying to put her emotions into words. “When the Dukes of Ichtar inhabited Sigholt the Keep always had a feeling of wrongness about it, but the wrongness of Dukes of Ichtar was not subtle – it glared forth like the noon-day sun. Whatever is…not right…about the Keep now is far more elusive. Almost,” she paused again to lick her lips, “almost crafty. Shrewd.”

“Is it the Keep, lovely lady, or someone – something -inside it?”

Zeherah spun about. Behind her, perhaps three or four paces, stood the Prophet in his silvery beauty. But his brow was as furrowed in thought as hers, and his eyes were fixed on the Keep. She turned back to Sigholt.

“Not the Keep. No, not at all. The Keep is vibrating with health and happiness. It does not feel the wrongness. It does not recognise it.”

The Prophet sighed and stood behind her shoulder. “Someone inside, then?”

Zeherah nodded. “Yes.”

Who? he thought. Who? It worried him that he could not understand it… yet what could he do? If he could not sniff it

this close, then he would do no better in the Keep itself…and he could not risk the bridge recognising him. Not yet.

Caelum, he thought suddenly, the realisation sending cold ripples down his spine. Caelum is in there! Be safe, Caelum!

“We should not be concerned about that now,” he said, placing a hand on Zeherah’s shoulder. “Tonight we are here to witness for the last of the five. After tonight you will be together again.”

“Whole in ill-health and corruption,” Yr said. “Do you wish that you had not volunteered for this task?” the Prophet asked sharply.

“I chose of my own free will,” she replied, holding the Prophet’s stare.

He was the first to drop his eyes. He had never thought to have been this affected by their suffering. Three thousand years ago it had seemed an adventure, even to him. Now …

“I suffer with you, Yr.” He raised his head again and met her level gaze.

And yet you will live through it! she whispered in his mind for him alone, and the Prophet winced. He quickly smoothed his expression, then bent and kissed Zeherah on the mouth.

“Zeherah, you will be beloved for always for the sacrifice you now make. And you will always rest in my heart. I could not have asked for better than you.” Fine words, Prophet.

Zeherah nodded, and her eyes swam with tears. “I, like Yr and Ogden and Veremund and my beloved Jack, harbour a myriad of regrets. But most of all,” her breath caught in her throat, “I regret that I should have lost so much life trapped in that ruby. That is so unfair.” Unfair, Prophet.

She slipped her robe from her shoulders and stepped to the shore line, hesitating as the wavelets washed her toes, then strode resolutely into the water. Within moments she had disappeared underneath the surface.

Unfair that we should have to suffer so much, Prophet. Was there no other way?

No other way, Yr. Will you go forward with hate in your heart?

I do not hate, Prophet. I merely regret – but regret lies so heavily on my soul that I do not think I will ever smile again.

And to that the Prophet had nothing to say.

When Zeherah walked back out of the Lake, her eyes glittering with power, the other four stepped forward to hug her fiercely.

As they stood together, the Prophet spoke in words of power. “And now you are five again. Whole in your unwholesomeness. United by the corruption that eats at your hearts. From here your only duty is Fire-Night. Be there.”

Jack bowed his head, and his grip tightened about the staff. The heavy metal knob at its tip was black with tarnish, but the Prophet thought he could see faint lines of silver tracing across its surface. Soon.

“Be there,” he repeated, then disappeared.

“If we bathe in the Lake,” Zeherah said, “it will give us the strength for the final journey.”

…………………..:…………………………………………..

Inside the Worship Hail At Faraday’s back Minstrelsea swayed and hummed for over eighty leagues in a gigantic arc that swung from the Silent Woman Woods, through western Arcness and Skarabost, until now it waited only a few dozen seedlings’ distance from the Forbidden Valley and union with the Avarinheim.

The Forbidden Valley will have to be renamed, Faraday thought as she stared at the last remaining obstacle before her, once it becomes part of the greater forest.

Between her and the valley lay Smyrton. The sun shone overhead, yet some two hundred paces distant the village was grey and dark. There was no-one in the carefully tended fields, and Faraday could see no movement within the village, either. Everything seemed grey; the picket fences, once sparkling with white paint, the walls of the houses, once daubed with lime, the mellow thatch quilted thickly to roof beams. Faraday shivered, and the Goodwife put a supporting arm about her.

“Shadows,” she said with the voice of the Mother. “Somewhere in there lurks Artor.”

Faraday’s fear grew. She wished she could plant around Smyrton, leave it unvisited, undisturbed.

“Can’t,” the Goodwife said. “For that would be to leave a cancer in the heart of Minstrelsea.”

Plant straight through, then. Up to this point Faraday had not disturbed any towns or villages or evicted any from their lands. Axis, and then Azhure in her role as Guardian of the East, had made sure that the western parts of Tencendor would be free for Faraday, free for the forest.

All but Smyrton.

Azhure! Faraday thought desperately, where are you? For weeks she had been sending unspoken calls to Azhure, their urgency increasing with every day. Where was she? How was she? Had she managed to rescue Axis from the calamity that threatened him?

Would she be here in time?

“Believe,” the Goodwife said, and Faraday’s mouth trembled, attempted to smile, then thinned in despondency. She did not feel well, her legs and back were aching, and every movement now was an effort.

Why did she have to plant in this condition? Damn you, Axis, she thought bitterly, for making my life so difficult.

Her hand rested on her belly, and the Goodwife exchanged a worried glance with Barsarbe. In the four months since Yuletide, whatever ill-feeling there was between Faraday and Barsarbe had apparently vanished in the daily ritual of planting; but then, both Faraday and Barsarbe had carefully avoided any mention of Axis or Azhure. Faraday appreciated the company and conversation of the Avar women, and had spent the evenings laughing with Shra and telling the girl stories of her life as Queen.

But Faraday and Shra did more than story-tell. The Goodwife knew that most nights Shra, rather than Barsarbe, accompanied Faraday to the Woods beyond the Sacred Grove to help her transfer the seedlings. Well, the Goodwife thought, that task had finally been completed. Ur’s nursery was empty and the last seedlings now waited on the tray of the blue cart, waited for the final union.

The excitement of the forest behind them was palpable. Today, Minstrelsea would be finally joined to the Avarinheim, to the touch of the Earth Tree, or today the chance would be lost forever and the Plough would reclaim that which had been planted out.

And, somewhere among those dank grey houses and streets, waited Artor.

Come on, Azhure! the Goodwife muttered to herself, come on!

The village of Smyrton had changed. It had always been a stronghold of the Seneschal; strangely, some might have thought, considering its distance from the Tower of the Seneschal, but Smyrton held a special place in the worship of the Plough. Many generations ago, well before the Wars of the Axe, this was where Artor had garnered his first souls, where he had first explained the Way of the Plough, and where he had made the gift of the Plough itself to the families who wandered the Seagrass Plains gathering and hunting what they could.