Sinner by Sara Douglass. Book One of The Wayfarer Redemption

“Drago,” he whispered, and the vision changed, and now he swept over the spires of the Minaret Peaks, now over Tare, now over Carlon.

“Drago!” he cried. “Find me Drago!”

He felt his body lurch, as if it had abruptly changed direction, and he saw the tranquil shores of the Island of Mist and Memory – there was a presence there… Zenith! Aha – so that is where she’d gone. Good.

But no Drago.

Caelum wondered if the Song was as lost as he. In desperation, he cried out one last time, now using Drago’s birth name, thinking the Song required that.

“Find me DragonStar!”

In the space of a heartbeat, the entire world altered… and Caelum panicked. Tencendor had disappeared. Now he was lost, lost in a black void, and in this void he could sense a presence so infinitely powerful that he understood he would die if it found him.

“StarSon?” it whispered. “StarSon?”

Caelum could feel it reaching out for him, rushing towards him as if it were a great wind.

“StarSon!”

“No,” Caelum whispered.

“You pitiful weakling, StarSon,” the voice cried, and Caelum could feel the being rippling towards him. “Let me hunt you, let me impale you, let me violate your corpse, let me -”

“No!” Caelum screamed, and with the last of his willpower broke his contact with the Star Dance.

The Song ceased, and Caelum opened his eyes to the familiar surroundings of the map-room. His chest was heaving, his body covered in sweat, his hands trembling.

“Stars,” Caelum whispered into the room, “was that you, Drago?”

That evening Caelum was visited by SpikeFeather TrueSong.

He appeared from nowhere, perhaps the door, but Caelum was not sure. The chamber had been empty when Caelum went to close the shutters at the window, yet SpikeFeather had been there when he turned back to the room.

“SpikeFeather!”

Caelum was unnerved by the birdman’s sudden appearance. SpikeFeather carried about him an aura of subtle power. Not Enchanter power, not anything any Enchanter had seen previously. Caelum assumed he’d absorbed it from Orr.

“StarSon.” SpikeFeather bowed his eye-catching red head. “Has there been any news of Drago?”

“I am surprised that you have heard of such excitement secreted down in the waterways, SpikeFeather. Drago was still here, and RiverStar still alive, when you left to rejoin Orr.”

“The waterways reflect many things, StarSon. And some of them have concerned the problems of Sigholt.”

“You do not know Drago’s whereabouts?”

“No, StarSon, I do not.”

“But surely you could -”

“There is nothing I can do, StarSon. Drago is not in the waterways – that is all I can tell you.”

Caelum sighed, and poured each of them a glass of wine. Stars knew he’d need it to sleep tonight. “Well, then, SpikeFeather. What news from the Star Gate?”

In the consternation surrounding RiverStar’s murder and Drago’s escape over the past week, Caelum had pushed to one side the strange tidings of the whispers beyond the Star Gate.

Now… now he wondered if they had anything to do with his frightening vision of this morning.

SpikeFeather sat down in a chair and sipped at his wine. “They still whisper and call, but they have come no closer. They seem to be holding their distance. Orr is tense, but he has sounded no alarm. StarSon, I would venture to advise that WolfStar was right. They pose no danger save to the over-curious mind who would be tempted to plunge after them.”

“Through the Star Gate?” Caelum laughed incredulously – and a little too loudly. The Star Gate disconcerted him. He had seen his father, and numerous other Enchanters, stand at its rim, enthralled by the Star Dance and the universe it contained, but he always felt dizzy if he stayed there more than a moment.

SpikeFeather watched him, then shrugged. “No doubt the issue of the children will become no more than a passing curiosity, StarSon.”

“I do hope you are right,” Caelum said, and abruptly stood to pour himself some more wine. “I do hope so.”

He dreamed that night. He dreamed he was hunting through the forest. A great summer hunt, the entire court with him. His parents, laughing on their horses. His brother, Isfrael, and his sisters, even RiverStar. It was a glorious day, and they rode on the wind and on their power, and all the cares of the world and of Tencendor seemed very, very far away.

But then the dream shifted, changed. They still hunted, but Caelum could no longer see his parents or his brother and sisters. The hounds ran, but he could no longer see them either. The forest gathered about him, suddenly threatening.

And now even his horse had disappeared. He was running through the forest on foot, his breath tight in his chest, fear pounding through his veins.

Behind him something coursed. Hounds, but not hounds. They whispered his name. Oh, Stars! There were hundreds of them! And they hunted him.

They whispered his name. StarSon! StarSon!

Caelum sobbed in fear. What was this forest? It was nothing that he had ever seen in Tencendor. He cut himself on twigs and shrubs, fell, and scrambled, panicking, to his feet.

Something behind him… something… something deadly.

Running.

He heard feet pounding closer, he heard horns, and glad cries. They had cornered him!

Caelum fell to the forest floor and cowered as deeply into the dirt and leaf litter as he could.

But he couldn’t resist one glimpse, and that one glimpse was enough to push him to the brink of insanity.

A man, clad in enveloping dull black armour, rode a great dark horse. In his hand he wielded a massive sword. The horse reared to a halt before him and, as it did so, Caelum found breath for one final scream.

“DragonStar!”

Drago moved south through Minstrelsea, not really knowing where he was going, only driven by some urge to go south, south, south.

During the day he crept within the shadows, avoiding the few Avar he heard coming down the forest paths, ignoring the brilliant birds and magical creatures that inhabited the forest.

Ignoring all but one. Drago had become aware on the second day after leaving Niah’s Grove that the red doe followed him.

Damn her! Why follow him? Had she managed to contact StarDrifter? Was Zenith safe? The doe would not let him approach, so Drago had to continue on his way with his questions unanswered, trying his best to put her out of his mind, but wishing at every step that she would just leave him alone.

The evenings he spent gathering what fruit and berries he could from shrubs, and digging for the tuber roots he knew formed the subsistence food of the Avar. But he found little. One day he managed to catch a fish in a stream, and had to eat that raw because he did not have the implements for making a fire.

Its flesh was cold and slimy as it slid down his throat, and Drago choked and gagged, but forced it down. Disgusting as it was, Drago still preferred his current existence to the one he’d lived at Sigholt. Raw fish was surely better than lying in the corpse yard!

In the evenings, when he huddled beneath the overhang of some great-leaved plant, or in the exposed roots of the massive trees, when he had nothing but his thoughts for company, Drago reflected on his life.

It had been wasted thus far, he decided. He’d been kept trapped within the SunSoar family, trapped by their hatred and distrust, trapped by his reputation. He’d been allowed no role in the new Tencendor – and what role could he be given? Surely the black-hearted Drago would have only manipulated that role for his own gain and his brother’s downfall!

Drago’s bitterness, always a small, hard canker in his heart, began to expand. He could have been an Icarü Enchanter, a SunSoar Enchanter, yet here he was, running through the forest, falsely condemned of murder so Caelum could finally have the excuse to do away with him.

And so, late in the nights, Drago would hug his sack to him, and wonder if Caelum had missed it yet. And he would wonder further, how can I use this? How can I wield it? How…?

He dreamed he was hunting through the forest. A great summer hunt, the entire court with him. His parents, laughing on their horses. His brothers, Caelum and Isfrael, and his sisters, even RiverStar. WolfStar was there, too, grinning maniacally as he strode beside the horses in his billowing black cloak. It was a glorious day, and they rode on the wind and on their power and all the cares of the world and of Tencendor seemed very, very far away.

He shifted, uncomfortable, and the dream shifted with him.

He dreamed he hunted, and he rode a great horse. In his hand he wielded a weapon, the likes of which Tencendor had never seen before – not even the Wolven bow compared in strength and enchantment with this.