Niah’s entire body trembled… and then rippled. Rippled again, and then jerked.
WolfStar stirred, and Faraday again grabbed at StarDrifter and pulled him back into a darkened corner, cloaking them in power.
WolfStar opened his eyes, blinked, and looked at Niah.
She lay still now, one hand curled protectively over her belly.
WolfStar smiled, stroked the hair back from her brow, and settled back into sleep.
When he had relaxed completely, the woman on the bed opened her eyes and stared into the corner where Faraday and StarDrifter stood.
It is done, she whispered in their minds, and the hand that had rested so protectively over her belly now rose, clenched into a tight fist, and slammed down hard.
Zenith rolled over and gagged, but she raised her hand again, and struck herself as hard as she could.
WolfStar rolled over, rising out of his sleep, and, desperate now, Zenith half fell out of the bed, grabbed at a heavy candlestick on a table, raised it, and drove it into her belly.
This time she could not help but cry out with the pain.
StarDrifter could bear it no longer. He leaped from the corner, leaped from the protecting cloak of Faraday’s power, and to Zenith’s side. “Zenith!”
WolfStar roared into full wakefulness. Not yet grasping the full import of what was happening, though understanding that something was dreadfully wrong, his power reached out and slammed StarDrifter into a far wall.
Zenith backed away, inching from the bed on her buttocks and hands and feet.
Even from the corner Faraday could see the spasms that quivered across her belly.
“Hurry, Zenith, hurry!” she whispered.
Zenith moaned, and doubled over, clutching at her belly.
“Niah!” WolfStar was at her side. “Did he hurt you? What has he done?”
“The baby!” Zenith gasped, and rolled completely over, moaning again.
She left a pool of blood gleaming behind her.
“Niah?” WolfStar whispered again, his mind refusing to believe what was happening. “Niah?”
Zenith grunted, once, twice, and then a third time. Her fingers scrabbled at the floorboards. She grunted again, curled into a tight ball.
WolfStar bent over her, and then somehow sensed Faraday in the corner.
“Help her! “he cried.
Faraday smiled. “With pleasure,” she said, and bent down to Zenith’s side. She was grateful her heavy hair hung down to hide the satisfaction that crossed her face.
Zenith, her hands bloodied, pushed Faraday back, then grabbed at something between her legs.
Then, in a move so appallingly fast WolfStar had no hope of stopping her, Zenith seized the tiny, bloody body and struck him across the face with it.
“Take your lover,” Zenith screamed, “and enjoy her into eternity!”
WolfStar backed away in confusion and horror.
Zenith hefted the tiny, battered body once more and flung it at him.
It hit his head with a sickening wet smack, and then flopped to the floor.
WolfStar, his face smeared with blood – and worse -slowly lowered his eyes.
There, lying at his feet, was the undeveloped body of a tiny baby girl. Bruised. Battered. Unmoving. Unbreathing. Her skull crushed beyond all repair.
“Niah,” Zenith said flatly, her eyes glittering hatred. “Dead at last.”
As Clear as a Temple Bell Beyond the Star Gate darkness swirled among the stars like tainted smoke. Entire galaxies had been lost, star systems obliterated, the very music of the Star Dance itself dulled.
The observers knew that the universe itself was in no danger, it was just that the closeness of the TimeKeeper Demons to the Star Gate meant that it was hard to see beyond their influence to the stars.
But that knowledge was no help – especially when the Star Dance itself was so muted by the Demons’ presence.
“Look how close they come!” Adamon cried. “How long before they totally block out the Star Dance?”
Axis lifted his eyes from the horror in the Star Gate and stared at him. He’d never seen Adamon anything other than totally composed. To now see him so agitated was in itself almost more terrifying than witnessing the TimeKeepers creep so close to the Star Gate.
“How long before all Enchanters – and us – lose touch with the Star Dance?” Adamon said, more quietly now.
“WolfStar,” Axis said, determined to try to find something that could aid them. “You can use the Dark Music. Has that been dulled by the approach of the TimeKeepers, too?”
WolfStar ignored the question. He stared into the Star Gate, his expression so bleak that Axis thought he looked as though hope itself had been torn from him.
“WolfStar?” he asked softly.
WolfStar’s head snapped up. ” What?” he snarled.
“I asked if the Dark Music has been dulled by the approach of the TimeKeepers.”
WolfStar took a deep, shuddering breath. “I apologise. My thoughts were… elsewhere. But, to answer your question, yes. If we can’t prevent these Demons breaking through the Star Gate soon then we shall shortly be powerless to do so at all. And if they do break through, then nothing will prevent them ravaging at will.”
And my son leads them, Axis thought numbly. My son! He brings the destruction not only of Tencendor, but of the Star Gods and every Enchanter alive with it.
“What of Caelum?” Axis said. “If we lose all power, then so will Caelum. How can he stop them then?”
WolfStar shrugged. “I’m sure we can find some way to get the Sceptre back for him -”
“Hope will not win this day,” Axis said. “I, for one, have had enough of this vacillation. WolfStar, it is time we studied this Maze Gate. And then it is time we actually did something. Will you take us there?”
WolfStar nodded, and turned away.
SpikeFeather started as the three suddenly appeared at the head of the steps leading down to the Maze. He’d spent the past few weeks either trying to decipher the Gate’s message – an uneasy task at best – or wandering the waterways, trying to access the sites of the other craft. The search had been a miserable failure, and his attempts to decipher the Gate not much better.
It was a most frustrating Gate.
Beside him sat WingRidge. WingRidge had appeared a few days ago – his fifth visit in the time SpikeFeather had been down here – although the captain had maddeningly refused to say what his exact business was. In fact, it was infuriatingly impossible to get WingRidge to say much at all.
Yet even so, the lines of worry about his eyes and mouth were far easier to decipher than the mysteries of this Gate.
Adamon and Axis walked down the steps slowly, unable to conceal their amazement at the sight of the city-maze before them. Everything within the city – streets, buildings, roofs, doors, windows – formed part of an incredibly intricate labyrinth. It stretched into a hazy distance, leagues of twisting, winding madness.
“How could anyone find their way through that?” Axis whispered, stopping halfway down the steps and staring.
“The idea was that nothing should ever find its way out of it,” WolfStar said.
“Qeteb’s soul lies in there?” Adamon said.
WolfStar nodded. “Somewhere. If they need to reconstitute him completely then the Demons must hunt it down.”
And suddenly, as clear as a temple bell on a snowy night, WolfStar knew what he had to do. Life parts lay scattered all over Tencendor – just waiting to be used. On any dead body that needed reviving.
Niah!
Axis studied him carefully, wondering at the emotions raging across WolfStar’s face. “So the Maze is intended not only to keep Qeteb in, but to keep the Demons out.”
WolfStar composed himself; whatever had distracted him now seemed put aside. “Partly.”
He hesitated, then indicated that they should join SpikeFeather and WingRidge by the Gate. “But I think the Maze serves other purposes as well – although I have never been able to decipher exactly what. Ah, wait!”
WolfStar stopped Adamon and Axis on the final few steps. “Look!” He pointed towards a distant quarter of the Maze. “Those streets and that tenement complex are new. The Maze is growing. Faster than I’ve yet observed it.”
Adamon glanced at Axis. “In response to the approach of the Demons,” he muttered, and then they negotiated the last five or six steps and joined an awed SpikeFeather and an impassive WingRidge.
SpikeFeather bowed deeply to Adamon and Axis, murmuring a greeting.
“Peace,” Adamon said. “We have not come to disturb your contemplations, SpikeFeather, but to scry out this Gate for ourselves. And you,” he turned to the captain of the Lake Guard, “are WingRidge?”
WingRidge inclined his head.
“WolfStar tells us you are devoted to the Maze.”
“Devoted to the StarSon, Adamon,” WingRidge said.
“Then why are you not above ground helping him in his battle with Zared?” Axis asked harshly.
WingRidge’s composure did not falter. “I, as the entire Lake Guard, serve the StarSon as we see best. Sometimes, Axis, that way is not immediately apparent to outsiders.”