Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

A shape firmed in the mist, then glowed, and then a great white stag bounded out of the mist and spray.

“Raum!” Faraday cried, opening her arms, and the stag halted before her, every muscle quivering, his eyes rolling slightly. Faraday reached out and gently touched his nose, then the stag leaped past them, almost knocking Barsarbe to the ground, and disappeared into the trees behind them.

“Raum?” Barsarbe muttered. “That was Raum?”

“He has been blessed,” Faraday said quietly, staring at the spot where he had disappeared.

“Faraday!” Azhure half cried, half laughed. “Look!”

Hundreds upon thousands of creatures were swarming forth, creatures from the Enchanted Wood beyond the Sacred Grove. Birds and beasts and some that were neither, all rushing towards them in a tide of beauty and joy.

“Faraday!” Barsarbe cried, and tried to pull her out of the way.

Faraday resisted, clinging to Azhure. “No, Barsarbe. They won’t harm us. Be still, now.”

But Barsarbe would not listen to her. She stared an instant longer, then jumped behind Tree Mirbolt, her hands to her ears as a great euphony of sound and movement swept down the valley. Further down the path the other Avar women similarly took refuge behind trees.

Faraday, Azhure and Shra stood their ground, allowing the great tide to part and sweep about them, laughing as beasts brushed their skin and then were gone, as birds tangled briefly within their hair and then freed themselves, as soft, hot breath tantalised then vanished.

“Oh!” Faraday cried as she turned with Azhure and Shra to watch the forest absorb the creatures.

“They’ll run right through to the south,” said Azhure.

“The creatures of the Enchanted Wood have entered their new home,” Faraday said, then her smile faded. “Azhure? Shra? Do you hear anything?”

“Save the sounds of the night wakening about us?” asked Azhure.

Faraday frowned, and she glanced at the Forbidden Valley, then at the new forest to the south. “They are joined to the Avarinheim,” she said slowly. “Surely the Song of the Earth Tree should have touched them by now? The forest will not truly awaken unless it is touched by the Earth Tree Song. Have I done something wrong?”

Azhure looked back along the Valley – she would never refer to it as Forbidden again. The mist had cleared and now only the spray of the river hung in the air. Soft moonlight -Azhure glanced up and nodded slightly – illumed the valley. The Avarinheim could be seen clearly, and, as she watched a squirrel scamper along the path by the Nordra, Azhure repressed the painful memory of Axis standing at its verge with his sword to Raum’s throat.

What about the Earth Tree’s Song? Without its touch the forest would be magical, surely, but would wield little power. Gorgrael might be able to regather his forces . . . winter might snatch another bite. All depended on the Earth Tree’s Song.

Azhure felt Faraday tremble. “Faraday …” she began, searching for some useless platitude when, again, Shra jumped excitedly.

“Hear it?” she cried. “I hear her Song!”

Faraday and Azhure stilled and Barsarbe, whom both had forgotten, slowly emerged from behind the tree. Her face was white; in none of her experiences as a Bane had she seen so many strange things, nor been exposed to so much power, as she had this evening. And yet Azhure stood comfortably by Tree Friend’s side as if she were indeed her sister and not her rival and betrayer. Even Shra stood entranced and relaxed, and Barsarbe wondered briefly if she had been ensorcelled by the violent power that Azhure so obviously wielded.

She stepped forward purposefully, determined to see Azhure off once and for all – by the Mother! had she not done enough harm! – when Barsarbe, too, stilled.

There was something moving along the paths of the Avarinheim.

She could not see it, she could not hear it, but she could feel it.

Faraday took a step forward, then reached blindly behind her to grasp Azhure’s hand, pulling the woman forward as well. “Listen!”

No sound was discernible, but, like Barsarbe, Azhure and Shra could feel the presence of the Earth Tree speeding through the Avarinheim towards the new forest.

And Azhure could also feel danger. “Faraday…Shra,” she said urgently. “Out of the way. Now!”

Faraday gave a soft cry of protest as Azhure pulled her backwards, but Shra caught the sense of urgency, and between them they pulled Faraday back to Tree Mirbolt. Barsarbe stood undecided for long heartbeats, looking first at the Avarinheim, then to Azhure and Shra, then she too retreated.

“Barsarbe,” Azhure said. “We shall all have to share Mirbolt’s shade.”

Barsarbe glared at her, then looked away.

Faraday clung to Mirbolt’s great trunk, not the least perturbed by the feeling of intense power that rushed – surged -towards them down the paths of the Avarinheim.

“Feel her gladness?” she cried, and Azhure did not know to what she referred – Mirbolt or the Earth Tree – but she did, indeed, feel it. It vibrated through her entire body, uncomfortably so.

Then it emerged to flood down the valley.

It was the Earth Tree Song, but sung at such a pitch and with such power and emotion that Azhure could not only feel it, she could almost see it.

Anything standing in its path would have been bowled over and flung into the river as it, too, rushed past. And, like the river, the narrow confines of the rocky chasm concentrated the Song until it was almost unbearable and everyone, Faraday included, pressed hands to ears and screwed their eyes shut as the Song of the Earth Tree plunged by them into the forest.

Then silence.

Puzzled, the women slowly, foolishly, loosened their hands.

Silence for one, long heartbeat.

Then the entire forest of Minstrelsea burst, screamed, into Song.

Azhure felt Faraday collapse against her, screaming herself, and she wrapped her arms as tight as she dared about the woman, using her own power to try to cocoon them against the sound of Forest Song.

All Tencendor quavered, and people and Icarii cried and clung to the backs of chairs and to table edges and to each other as the Song burst over the land. But the pain did not last. It was only the initial rush that was so devastating. The first burst of Song quickly gathered strength until it moved from sound into pure emotion, and then from pure emotion into even purer power. The Song moved beyond the ability of mortal ears to hear it, but it was still apparent to any who stepped beneath the forest canopy as a feeling of tremendous power that drifted about the trees, and a tremor underfoot that vibrated through the trunks of the trees and caused the leaves to tremble.

Only those who wielded strange powers themselves would ever be able to hear the melody of the Forest Song.

Deep in his Ice Fortress, Gorgrael tipped back his head and shrieked until the sound reverberated about the ice walls and tore through both ice and flesh.

“Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! Both of you!”

At his feet, dwarfed by the great figure arching above him, the baby boy also writhed and shrieked, but terror rather than anger fuelled his screams.

Scratches and abrasions lined and shadowed his naked, battered body.

Azhure blinked. What was wrong? Was her sudden presentiment of disaster caused only by the cessation of the audible Song? She opened her mouth to speak but was forestalled by Faraday’s action.

Faraday closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against Tree Mirbolt. “Mother, thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

Now she pressed Azhure’s hand to the tree trunk as Jack had so long ago pressed hers to the tree in the Silent Woman Woods. “Azhure, Mirbolt,” she said, her voice harsh with power, “know each other, accept each other.”

She paused and stared at Azhure.

Azhure, her e^s enormous, nodded once, and she could feel Mirbolt accept as well.

Faraday sighed. “Remember, Mirbolt, when Azhure calls, you must assist her, and bring your sisters as well. Azhure? Azhure, when Axis needs the trees then you must be the one to call them.”

“I witness,” Shra said clearly, and placed her small hand over those of the two women.

“Oh, no!” Azhure protested, ignoring Shra. “You are Tree Friend, not I. I…I have already taken too much from you, don’t make me take this as well.”

Faraday smiled. “I have done my task as Tree Friend, Azhure. My task was to plant the trees out -”

“And to bring the trees behind Axis,” Azhure said stubbornly. Stars! She didn’t want this on her conscience as well!

“You can do that as well as I, Azhure, and I still have to bring the Avar behind Axis. Without them all will yet be lost.” She glanced at Barsarbe, then sighed. “But for the moment, until Fire-Night, I will live only for myself and for my -“