“Well,” said Faraday. “RiverStar had found a new lover. And SunSoar… perhaps. Who? FreeFall? Axis?”
“No!” StarDrifter cried. “First blood is forbidden!”
“I doubt that would have stopped RiverStar getting what she wanted,” Zenith murmured.
Faraday ignored her. “Caelum? WolfStar? And what about Isfrael?” No! she thought, stricken, not my son!
“Drago himself?” StarDrifter said, trying to distract her.
Now it was Zenith who was horrified. “Not Drago! I would almost be willing to believe she’d bedded our father before I’d accept the idea of Drago.”
“You like him very much, don’t you,” Faraday observed softly. “Why?”
Zenith spoke without thinking. “Because I trust him. He was nothing but kind to me, and in moments when he thought not to be observed, he was kind to others. I cannot explain it, but on some fundamental plane of my being I do trust him.”
“And yet,” StarDrifter said carefully, “as a child he showed himself to be completely untrustworthy.”
“What he did as an infant was reprehensible,” Zenith said. “No-one can condone his alliance with Gorgrael. For that he was punished, and dreadfully, considering that no lasting harm was done to Caelum, nor even to our parents or Tencendor by his actions. To have his Icarü blood disallowed…”
She halted, trembling. Magic and enchantment was so much a part of her Icarü heritage, as it was StarDrifter’s, that neither found it possible to contemplate a life without it. And yet, wasn’t it due to Drago’s actions that she was being forced to contemplate such a life?
“But what was abhorrent in Drago’s subsequent life,” Zenith finally went on, “was that neither Axis nor Azhure took the chance to rebuild or reform his soul. He was further punished every day of his life for his infant crime. He was never loved, never hugged, always reminded that he was the most vile of creatures – and yet he could not even remember what he had done to deserve such treatment! Drago was constantly reminded that he was vile and untrustworthy – yet he could not know why.”
StarDrifter stared at her. He’d never thought of that. Neither, he wagered, had Axis or Azhure.
“If he has continued to be surly, even bitter,” Zenith said softly, looking at her grandfather, “then it is because he has never been allowed to be anything else. Who knows who or what the real Drago is? Or what he was capable of becoming? Our parents slammed him into a mould and kept him there. Eventually he conformed to that mould. Our parents never gave Drago the love and affection that would have redeemed him.”
“Everyone was too ready to accuse him of RiverStar’s murder,” Faraday said.
“Because not to accuse Drago,” StarDrifter said, his face paling with horror at what he was about to say, “would be to suspect another SunSoar male.”
“Who?” asked Faraday. “Who?”
“Of our entire family,” Zenith said softly, “StarDrifter was the only one not present in Sigholt when RiverStar died.”
“Niah?”
The voice broke the quiet between them.
“Axis!” StarDrifter leapt to his feet. Would his son never leave him to finish a conversation in peace? Axis was walking down the few steps from the top of the Assembly Chamber to meet them. His face was mildly puzzled.
“Niah?”
His daughter rose smoothly to her feet and faced him. “I am Zenith.”
He stared at her. “What happened?”
“Niah lost her battle with life,” she said very quietly, holding his stare. “I lived.”
“But you are -”
“No!” Zenith abruptly shouted. “I am not Niah! I am your daughter!”
“Then where is Niah?”
StarDrifter could not believe he was hearing this conversation. “Niah has returned to the grave, Axis. Loved and remembered – but dead.”
Axis did not move his eyes from Zenith’s face. “Your mother thought that —”
“She was wrong.”
“She believed that -”
“She should have believed in me more.”
Axis was quiet. Then, “I heard some of your conversation before I made my presence known. Zenith -you helped Drago escape?”
“Someone had to help him.”
“Do you know what you have done? Drago now leads the -”
“I knew that someone should have helped Drago, Father! That someone should have been you or Mother, many years ago. If there was a murder committed in Sigholt, then it was not only RiverStar’s!”
A muscle twitched in Axis’ cheek. He stared at Zenith a heartbeat longer, then switched his gaze to StarDrifter’s face.
“In order to cope with Drago’s treachery, StarDrifter, I must enlist your aid.”
“You know you have it. What can I do?”
“By assisting to ward closed the Star Gate – if we can do it. If. The Circle of the Star Gods will not be enough. We need the most powerful Enchanters, as well as Isfrael and the Banes of the Avar peoples, to help construct our defence. StarDrifter,” his voice became gentler, “I need you. Now. At the Star Gate. We have to move fast.”
“You have me.”
“Who else do you have here on the Mount to help?”
StarDrifter named some ten or eleven Enchanters, and Axis nodded.
“Then let us not linger, StarDrifter. The Demons quest closer.”
Zenith and Faraday stood side by side watching as Axis and StarDrifter hurried away.
“He did not ask me to help,” Zenith said quietly.
“True,” Faraday said, then she grinned. “But do not fret, Zenith. I have something just as helpful and, methinks, much more fun for us to do.”
She laughed at the expression on Zenith’s face. “Come now, Zenith. Did you think that I would let us linger here while the saving of Tencendor awaited?”
F Iaraday? What do you mean?” Faraday stood up, then grabbed Zenith’s hand and hauled her to her feet. “Imagine the scene at the Star Gate, Zenith. Hundreds of Enchanters and Banes. All wasting what little power they have left to ward the Star Gate. Or fighting whatever it is that comes through. Do you think they will spare a moment’s thought for Drago?”
“And,” Zenith said softly, thinking it through, “what if RiverStar’s real murderer stands there? Waiting for Drago?”
“I would not place a large wager on Drago’s life then, my sweet. Besides, from what I have heard, Axis and Caelum would be glad enough to see him dead and put aside for good. Do you trust anyone there?”
“I would trust StarDrifter.”
Faraday slowed as they walked down the steps into the centre of the Assembly. “Yes. Yes, so do I. But StarDrifter alone will be of no help – especially not if all Icarü Enchanters lose touch with the Star Dance. Zenith, can you feel the fading of the Dance?”
She nodded. “I feel it like a wound. It… it lessens me.”
They reached the mosaic circle of the Assembly and walked arm in arm towards one of the exits. “Faraday, how are we going to reach the Ancient Barrows? My father might be able to spirit StarDrifter and the other Enchanters there, but I don’t have the strength -”
“Hush,” Faraday said. “I have some old friends we can rely on.” She grinned. “If they still remember me.”
By the time the women had reached the dormitory, Axis, StarDrifter and the other Enchanters had gone.
“He wasted no time,” Faraday murmured. “And neither shall we. Zenith, fetch yourself a cloak, beg us a small bag of food from the kitchens, and we will be on our way. Meet me at the top of the steps in an hour.”
Then she kissed Zenith’s cheek and was gone.
Zenith collected a thick green cloak from her chamber, sliding a feather and hair comb into its pocket, then begged a basket of food from the thin-faced cook in the kitchens. The man, despite his morose face, had a kind heart that did not require too many explanations, and he filled a large basket with enough food to see the women through several days.
“I thank you,” Zenith said as he handed the basket over, and then she was gone.
Faraday was waiting for her. “Are you sad to be leaving here, Zenith?”
Zenith looked over her shoulder -at the temple complex and the great beam of cobalt light that speared into the sky from the Temple itself. There were streaks of grey through it.
“No, I am not. I do not think I ever wish to come back here. This place reeks of Niah.”
Faraday nodded, then led the way silently down the steps.
From the base of the steps it was a day and a half’s walk to reach Pirates’ Town on the island’s northern harbour. They walked briskly, but not at a pace that would overly tire them, resting every two hours and taking turns to carry the basket. Faraday brought nothing with her save a magnificent ruby cloak that Zenith thought she had seen before. But when she asked Faraday, the woman only smiled and changed the subject.
They rested the night under the eaves of the thick jungle that covered most of the island. It was warm, and the women’s cloaks were useful more as mats than blankets. They spoke late into the night, Zenith hesitatingly asking Faraday about her life as the daughter of Earl Isend, then as Borneheld’s wife. She was not sure if Faraday would want to talk about it, but she did not seem to mind, and for the first time in her life Zenith heard the story of the Time of the Prophecy of the Destroyer from a perspective other than her parents’.