“The Questors and we are engaged in the same quest, my love,” she said, and the endearment slipped naturally from her lips. “We seek what has been stolen from us. The Questors have been seeking, hunting, for much longer than have I and my companions. Aeons.”
Drago remembered the legends of Fire-Night. They were ancient, telling of a time even before the original Enchantress founded the three human-like races of Tencendor. Perhaps the ancient ones, the Questors’ Enemy, had been running for thousands of years even before they had crashed into Tencendor and created the Sacred Lakes.
“A long time,” he said softly. “And they could not find what they wanted in all this time?”
“Oh, they knew where the Enemy had fled, but they did not have the power to break through the Star Gate, nor even to approach it.”
She shifted slightly against his body, and for an instant Drago’s mind was rilled with possibilities that had nothing to do with regaining his power. But StarLaughter continued.
“The Questors need the power of someone from Tencendor to actually pull them to, and then through, the Star Gate.”
“But you, and the children – the Hawkchilds – are powerful, surely. You are an Enchanter, and the children were all of great potential.”
“Once.” StarLaughter sighed. “Once. But we drifted a long time before the Questors found us, Drago. During that time our powers ebbed. The Questors have managed to use what was left of our powers to travel this close to the Star Gate, but no closer. But you,” she looked up and smiled, “you have what they need. Your life force is so strong. You are going to get us through, Drago!”
Her hand rested on one of his legs, and she squeezed slightly.
“Me?” he said, trying to maintain at least the appearance of calmness. “How? I am useless as I am.”
“The Questors can touch that part of you your mother buried so brutally. They can use it. Your power was not destroyed, only hidden. But what is important, my love,” and her hand began to slowly trail up his thigh, “is that you will get us back through the Star Gate.”
“But-”
“Not now, my beloved,” she whispered, and sat up so she could kiss him. “Not now.”
Her hand started to rub him, arousing with each motion. , “And will you regain me my heritage?” Drago managed to ask, his voice hoarse. “Can your Questors reverse my blood order? Make me once again an Icarü Enchanter?”
“Easily, my love,” she said, “you shall be all that you want.”
And then there was no more breath for words.
Of What Is Lost From the Ancient Barrows, Faraday walked south through the grassy Tarantaise plains. She had never been so happy previously. Never. Nothing compared to this freedom she now enjoyed.
For that she thanked both Drago and Noah.
She did not know exactly what changes her transformation had wrought. Noah had said that the Sceptre had enriched her, given her the power to find what was lost. But Faraday knew the changes went beyond that. From brief glimpses caught in streams she could see she looked like the Faraday who had died in Gorgrael’s Ice Fortress, save that the lines of care and sadness about her eyes and mouth had gone. But if she looked like that Faraday, she did not know if she was quite the same woman.
That woman had laboured in her service to the Mother and the trees. Now the trees waved in the sun far behind her and did not need her. They still loved her, Faraday could feel that, and she them. But they did not need her.
That woman had been torn to emotional and physical shreds by her love for Axis. Now she felt largely indifferent to him. The love had gone. She felt friendship towards Axis, but she did not know if she would ever completely trust him again. Even though Faraday knew he could not have saved her in Gorgrael’s chamber, somehow she had always hoped he would.
But he hadn’t. Gorgrael had torn her apart, and Faraday’s love and regard for Axis had died with her.
The Mother still loved her, Faraday knew that, too. But she realised the Mother was willing to let her go.
Perhaps… perhaps her transformation into the doe had only been a stage, a transition. The Mother had promised her that for her service to the Prophecy of the Destroyer and the trees she would eventually run unfettered, and Faraday had supposed that when she had been transformed into the doe that promise had been fulfilled.
But in its own way, that had also been an entrapment, and Faraday had not been free to do as she wished.
“But for the moment I am!” Faraday ran through the grass, her arms outstretched, hair and cloak flying, laughing with sheer exuberance.
Once she had slowed down and caught her breath, Faraday turned her thoughts to the three people who now most concerned her.
StarDrifter. Her mouth curled in secret amusement as she thought of him. Axis’ father. She did not know StarDrifter very well, but what she did know she liked. He was as arrogant as his son, but more open in that arrogance. If StarDrifter had a liking for something – or someone – then everyone knew about it. He would not have hidden a lover from Faraday, but would have confronted her with it. And yet, in that very confrontation, shielded her.
He was arrogant, but he also knew how to care. Faraday thought that the events surrounding Gorgrael’s invasion of Tencendor had taught him responsibility and had deepened his sense of compassion. Now that he lived on the Island of Mist and Memory, leading the Icarü’s worship of the stars and the Star Gods, he had more to think about than the relieving of his own desires.
Faraday had seen at once that he cared very much for Zenith, and she thought that no-one else had a better chance of helping the woman. Faraday sighed, and some of her happiness slid away. Poor Zenith. Another of Axis and Azhure’s children caught up in some maelstrom not of their choosing or making.
From Zenith, Faraday’s thoughts moved inevitably to Drago.
The evil rogue, the betraying child.
All true. And yet – more.
He would come back, and then she would see. She smiled.
And so Faraday walked on.
That night she dug out a hollow beneath the grasses, then curled up in the ruby cloak, and it kept her warm enough. The next morning she was awoken by her stomach growling in hunger.
She sat up, half expecting Goodwife Renkin to appear with a plate of sausages and eggs, but the Goodwife was nowhere to be seen.
“On my own,” she said, combing her hair with her fingers. “Well, that is as it should be.”
And so she rose and began once again to walk south.
In the mid-morning Faraday came upon an isolated farmhouse. Several fields ranged to the north and west of the farmhouse, and a herd of brown and cream cattle grazed on a hilltop some three hundred paces away. The house was made of faded mud-brick, with long low walls, and a well-patched thatch roof. A woman, the goodwife, was bent over in her vegetable patch beside the house.
Faraday stopped and looked, a half-smile on her face. The scene reminded her so much of the time the Goodwife Renkin had sheltered her and Timozel, on their way north to Gorkenfort.
I hope I can touch this woman’s life for the better, too, Faraday thought, and walked towards the house.
“Goodwife?” she said softly as she stopped at the vegetable patch’s boundary.
The woman jerked up straight, surprised by the voice. “I mean you no harm,” Faraday said, wondering what she must look like, barefoot, wild-haired, and naked underneath a rich ruby cloak.
“What do you want?” the woman asked, her eyes watchful but her tone reasonably friendly.
Faraday looked at her carefully. She was thin, and abnormally pale. Hard-worked, yes, but there was more… “Take a small linen bag of stout weave,” Faraday said, “and ask your goodman to fill it with iron filings. Put this bag into your stew pot, and eat well of the stew that you bubble in it. Keep the bag in that pot, week in, week out. When the linen decays, make another bag for the filings.” “Why?”
“In this way,” Faraday said, “you will re-find your health, and your fertility. No more will your babes slip from your womb in the first month or two after conception.”
The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Lady, I do thank you. How may I repay your kindness?”
“Well,” Faraday said hopefully, “do you have an old dress that perhaps you no longer need, and a pair of boots?”
And so, now comfortably booted and robed, Faraday walked on. As the sun dipped into mid-afternoon she came across a band of horse traders. They drove before them a herd of some forty horses, mostly yearlings, bound for the markets of Carlon far to the west.