Enchanter

by Sara Douglass

  Axis stood in one fluid motion, feeling his father’s intrusion keenly.

  StarDrifter held his gaze briefly, then dropped his eyes to Azhure and smiled warmly at her, his face breathtaking in its beauty. “You should not bring Azhure out here, Axis. She does not have our balance.” He stepped forward and helped Azhure to her feet, clasping her hand as he led her back into the safety of the mountain.

  As they stepped through the archway and down into the wide corridor, Azhure pulled her hand awkwardly from StarDrifter’s grasp. “I followed Axis out there, StarDrifter. It was not his fault. And neither the height of the cliff nor the narrowness of the ledge bother me. Truly.”

  StarDrifter looked back at her. He wished she would abandon the Avar tunic and leggings and wear the loose flowing robes favoured by the Icarii women; she would look superb in their jewelled colours and she had the grace to do their elegance justice.

  Axis stepped down into the corridor behind them and StarDrifter glanced at his son. The tensions of their morning argument remained, and this afternoon’s training session would not be easy. No doubt they would end this afternoon with angry words as well. Axis was so desperate to learn, but hated being the student.

  Yet he learned so well, and so quickly. That was part of the problem, for Axis wanted to learn faster than StarDrifter was willing to teach. While StarDrifter took pride in the knowledge that the Prophecy had chosen him among all Icarii to breed this son, he also found it hard not to resent Axis’ power. As EvenSong resented losing her only and most favoured child status, so StarDrifter was battling to come to terms with the fact that very soon Axis’ power would surpass his own—and StarDrifter had long revelled in being the most powerful Icarii Enchanter alive.

  StarDrifter looked back to Azhure with studied casualness. “Will you join us this afternoon, Azhure?” he asked. With her present, both Enchanters kept a tighter rein on their tempers. Neither MorningStar—who often helped with Axis’ training—nor Axis had so far raised any objections to Azhure’s occasional presence in the training chamber.

  “I thank you for the invitation, StarDrifter, but I will refuse. I promised EvenSong I would spend the afternoon with her. If you will excuse me.”

  She nodded at both men, then walked down the corridor, disappearing around the first corner.

  “Imagine the Enchanters she would bear,” StarDrifter said, so quietly that Axis could not believe he was hearing correctly. “I am nothing if not a good judge of blood.”

  Then he turned his powerful gaze on his son. “Over the past thousand years the Icarii blood has thinned. Before the Wars of the Axe that severed our races many Icarii birdmen chose to get their sons on human women. It was said that human blood added vitality to the Icarii. You are proof enough of that.”

  Axis felt his anger simmering. Was StarDrifter planning another seduction?

  “I love Rivkah,” StarDrifter said slowly. “I demonstrated my love through marriage—even though I believed she had lost our son. In ages past Icarii birdmen simply took the babies of human-Icarii unions and never spared a thought for the women they had bedded who had struggled to birth their children.”

  Appalled at such evidence of Icarii insensitivity, Axis suddenly understood the depth of hate and loathing that had led the Acharites to finally drive the Icarii from Tencendor.

  The Icarii had a lot to learn about compassion.

  3

  THE WOLVEN

  Azhure walked through the confusing maze of corridors in the Talon Spike complex, hoping she had remembered EvenSong’s instructions correctly. Over at least a thousand years the Icarii had tunnelled and excavated the mountain into myriad chambers, connecting corridors and shafts. The Icarii not only used horizontal corridors, but also vertical shafts—foot travellers needed to be wary of wells opening abruptly at their feet.

  Azhure paused at one of the main connecting shafts of Talon Spike, which not only extended up to the very peak of the mountain, but also fell into its dizzying depths. She grasped the waist-high guard rail and peered down. Two Icarii, already several levels below her, slowly spiralled down through the shaft side by side. Both had gorgeously dyed emerald and blue wings, and the soft enchanted light of the shaft shimmered across their jewel-bright feathers. Azhure had to blink back tears at their loveliness. Nothing in her previous life in Smyrton had prepared her for the beauty and passion of life among the Icarii of Talon Spike.

  On her arrival six weeks ago Azhure had wondered at the height and width of the corridors—but their spaciousness was explained the moment she saw several Icarii wing their graceful way along the corridor, several paces above her head. Fortunately for her, the complex also had stairs that wound about the walls of the vertical shafts. Icarii children did not develop wings until they were four or five years of age, and did not learn to fly well until they were eight or nine. And occasionally an Icarii who injured a wing might have to walk the corridors or climb the stairs. MorningStar, StarDrifter’s mother, was such a one. She had been unable to attend the Yuletide rites in the Earth Tree Grove after snapping a tendon in her left wing, and was still grumbling about the indignity of having to use the stairs.

  Leaving the shaft, Azhure passed the doors to the massive Talon Spike Library. The Avar Bane Raum spent most of his days here, teaching the wingless youngsters about the Avar and their forest home. Azhure’s thoughts drifted to Rivkah as she walked. Over the many years that Azhure had known Rivkah—or GoldFeather as she had been called until recently—she had never known her so at peace with herself as she had been since Axis’ arrival. Rivkah might yet have her unhappinesses with StarDrifter, but the reunion with the son she had long thought dead had healed a festering wound in Rivkah’s heart. She spent many hours each day guiding Azhure through the intricacies of Icarii society, teasing the young woman mercilessly when she gaped open-mouthed at some of the more permissive practices of the Icarii.

  “You are already a much sought-after prize, Azhure Groundwalker, with your raven-black hair and mysterious smoke-filled eyes,” Rivkah had said only this morning. “Will you survive the Beltide festivities without being cradled within some lover’s wings?”

  Azhure had blushed and turned away, thinking uncomfortably of the way StarDrifter had begun to watch her recently. The last thing she wanted to do was come between StarDrifter and Rivkah, who was rapidly filling the void caused by the loss of Azhure’s mother so early in life. Azhure couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t woken several nights a week, her cheeks wet with tears of loss; but now she slept soundly, and the unsettling dreams that had troubled her for more than twenty years had vanished entirely.

  Azhure abruptly realised that for the past five or six weeks she had been constantly happy. Never had she been accepted before, and the Icarii not only seemed to accept her for who she was, but they actually liked her.

  She nodded to an Icarii passing overhead, her thoughts returning to EvenSong. Azhure had so far resisted the urge to join the Strike Force in weapons training for fear of giving in to the violent streak the Avar claimed she possessed. She shuddered, remembering how after she had seized the arrow and killed her first Skraeling, she had been consumed with the desire to kill. Perhaps the Avar were right to regard her with some degree of apprehension.

  But Azhure had made up her mind. Axis was right; she should seek her own path. If her path lay in violence, then perhaps she should simply accept that. Accept the blood and turn it into a mark of respect, not of reproach.

  She turned down a corridor to her left, then ran lightly down several levels of stairs, her grace causing the Icarii birdman who soared past her to turn his head and watch for long moments until the Groundwalker woman disappeared into a corridor far below.

  EvenSong had a leather thong tied about her pale-skinned forehead to keep the sweat out of her eyes. She had turned twenty-five on the day after Yuletide, and had immediately joined the Strike Force for her five years of compulsory military service.

  She grunted as she p
arried a blow from her sparring partner. She did not like to sweat and thought longingly of the relaxing hot waters of the Chamber of Steaming Water. Once she had looked forward to her years in the Strike Force, but that was only because she had believed she would spend those years with her cousin FreeFall. Born only two months apart, she and FreeFall had grown up together, planned their lives together, and mused over what it would be like when he became Talon. It was not unusual for Icarii to marry or form sexual relationships with close relatives, and FreeFall and EvenSong had become lovers at thirteen.

  Of course, neither EvenSong nor FreeFall had considered the possibility that he would be so cruelly murdered at such a young age. EvenSong daily bewailed not only the loss of her friend and lover, but also the prospect of spending the rest of her long life alone.

  Her sparring partner and Wing-Leader, SpikeFeather TrueSong, slipped his stave under EvenSong’s guard and dealt her a heavy blow to the ribs. She dropped her staff and fell to her knees, badly winded.

  “Pay attention,” SpikeFeather hissed viciously. “In battle—even in a tavern brawl—you would be dead now! We cannot afford to lose any more SunSoars.”

  EvenSong glared at him, her hand clutched to her ribs. “Like you lost FreeFall?” SpikeFeather had flown with FreeFall and HoverEye BlackWing to meet Axis atop Gorkenfort’s roof. But their mission had ended in tragedy when Borneheld murdered FreeFall.

  SpikeFeather swore and seized EvenSong by her short curls, hauling her to her feet. She winced and tried to twist free, but SpikeFeather’s grip was too strong.

  “FreeFall had the courage to face life, EvenSong, even when it led him to death. Think how he would frown to see you use his death to give up on life itself!”

  The ten other members of the Wing had stopped sparring and watched SpikeFeather and EvenSong soberly. Ever since the disaster of Yuletide, training had taken on a much more serious aspect. Where once good humour and enjoyment had pervaded weapons practice, now the expectation of an eventual conflict with Gorgrael’s forces dominated everyone’s thoughts.

  SpikeFeather let EvenSong’s hair go, then stepped back and glared at the rest of his command. He was an experienced Wing-Leader, but in these difficult times his responsibilities weighed heavily on him. And despite what EvenSong apparently thought, SpikeFeather agonised daily over his inability to act quickly enough to save FreeFall. EvenSong seemed to have no heart since FreeFall’s murder, and SpikeFeather knew that the inattention of a single member could bring ruin to his entire Wing in battle.

  To add to SpikeFeather’s woes, all of the Strike Force were on edge, and not simply because of the battle at Earth Tree Grove or the inevitable battle to come with Gorgrael’s forces. From the most senior Crest-Leader, FarSight CutSpur, to the lowliest recruit, the Strike Force was keenly aware of the presence of Axis SunSoar in Talon Spike. The Icarii Assembly had agreed to StarDrifter’s request to help his son in Gorkenfort partly because after a thousand years of relative peace they needed a true war leader. Someone who actually had experience of battle.

  Yet Axis SunSoar, one-time BattleAxe of the Axe-Wielders, the force that had been largely responsible for the thousand-year exile of the Icarii in Talon Spike, had shown not an iota of interest in the Strike Force in the month since he’d been in Talon Spike. As much as SpikeFeather, or any other member of the Strike Force, might tell himself that Axis was preoccupied with learning the skills of Enchanter from his father, his lack of interest had stung. When would Axis visit the training chambers? When would he deign to visit the Strike Force? And what would he say when he saw them train? What would he think? Would he praise, or deride?

  SpikeFeather was about to call a halt to their afternoon training when a movement at the edge of his vision stopped him. Azhure stood leaning over the balcony rail of the observation gallery, watching them gravely.

  “Azhure!” EvenSong exclaimed, and SpikeFeather hoped she felt just a little ashamed that her friend might have witnessed her poor behaviour.

  “I do not want to interrupt, SpikeFeather TrueSong,” Azhure said courteously, “and if I have broken your concentration then I apologise to you and to your command.” One of the first things Azhure had learned in Talon Spike was that the Icarii valued politeness and correct etiquette extremely highly. Two Icarii could get themselves into a murderous argument and never raise their voices or transgress the bounds of civilised language. The scene she had just witnessed between SpikeFeather and EvenSong was extraordinary, and bespoke the tension within the Strike Force.

  “I have decided to accept your offer to teach me the use of the bow and arrow, SpikeFeather.”

  SpikeFeather swept his wings behind him in the traditional Icarii gesture of welcome and goodwill. “You are welcomed, Azhure. And I regret that my command is not at its best this afternoon.”

  EvenSong reddened.

  SpikeFeather ignored her. “Both myself and my Wing would be pleased if you joined us, Azhure. We are all beholden to you for your bravery at Yuletide, the SunSoar family perhaps more than most.” Another barb for EvenSong. SpikeFeather was truly exasperated with her.

  Azhure stepped down from the ladder, took off her boots, and walked across the floor of the spacious training chamber towards the Wing. Soft mats covered every part of the floor, while from the high roof hung several brightly coloured orbs that served as archery targets. Weapon racks and cupboards lined the lower walls.

  “I am not dressed for combat, SpikeFeather. Please do not aim any arrows my way.” She grinned at the Wing commander, her hand indicating her Avar clothing and bare feet. All the Icarii present, both female and male, wore light leather training armour over brief loincloths—although the armour did not protect against serious blows. They were sweating after their exertions, and Azhure noticed that several had abrasions and dark bruises on their unprotected arms and legs. Feathers lay scattered across the floor mats.

  “I would be hounded from Talon Spike should I land an arrow in a guest, and such an admired guest at that,” SpikeFeather said gravely, then turned to one of the members of his Wing. “TrueFlight, would you lift the Wolven from the rack and select a quiver of arrows?” He paused dramatically, ignoring the collective gasp of the Wing.

  Azhure watched curiously as TrueFlight retrieved a beautiful bow and a quiver of arrows and handed them to SpikeFeather, who slung the quiver over his shoulder.

  “As creatures of the air ourselves we have a special affinity with weapons of flight,” SpikeFeather explained as he notched an arrow into the bow. “See.”

  In one liquid movement, so fast Azhure found it difficult to follow, SpikeFeather lifted the bow, aimed, and loosed the arrow. It soared towards the ceiling and lodged in a small scarlet target ball suspended sixty paces above their heads.

  “The stories of your ability don’t do you justice, SpikeFeather,” Azhure said. “Can I try that bow?” The bow SpikeFeather held was a weapon of elegance as well as of skill, and Azhure found its lure almost irresistible.

  SpikeFeather studied her. Since the Wolven’s creator had died four thousand years ago, only he had been able to master it. The Icarii had extraordinarily powerful flight muscles in their chests and backs, and SpikeFeather doubted whether Azhure, despite her height and obvious fitness, would even have the strength to draw a notched arrow back in a normal Icarii bow, let alone the Wolven.

  He finally shrugged. What would it hurt? He picked another arrow from his quiver and handed the bow to Azhure. Tall, but made of surprisingly light ivory wood, it was patterned with golden tracery and strung and tasselled in vivid blues and scarlets. It was as beautiful as it was deadly.

  “Here,” SpikeFeather said, showing Azhure how to place her hands, then notching the arrow. Standing behind her, he curled her fingers around the arrow. “Let me help you to…”

  “No,” Azhure said, stepping away from him slightly. “Let me try first, SpikeFeather. What should I aim for?”

  SpikeFeather smiled indulgently. “Aim high, Azhure, at an
y of the targets suspended from the ceiling. If you hit one I will make you a gift of the Wolven itself as a mark of Icarii admiration and fashion you a quiver with my own hands.”

  Azhure looked at the targets hanging from the ceiling. Then, without lowering her eyes, she raised the bow and started to draw the arrow back.

  SpikeFeather saw the exact moment when Azhure found that the Wolven required extraordinary strength. Her shoulders, back, and arms suddenly tensed, and her hands quavered so badly that SpikeFeather was sure she would drop the bow or let the arrow tumble to the floor. He started as if to step forward and help her, but EvenSong caught his elbow. “Let her try for herself,” she whispered, and SpikeFeather subsided, although a frown of worry creased his face. What if she couldn’t control the flight of the arrow, and skewered one of his command? None of them wore armour that could withstand a loose Icarii arrow.

  But Azhure managed to retain control, although SpikeFeather could see what a supreme effort it cost her. Gradually her hands steadied and her back straightened. Then she took a deep breath and pulled the arrow all the way back, raising the bow to her face and sighting along the shaft of the arrow.

  SpikeFeather’s eyes widened in amazement. Where did she find the strength to control the bow? A human woman?

  Azhure, as taut and tense as the Wolven itself, finally let fly the arrow in as good an imitation of SpikeFeather’s action as she could manage.

  As one the Icarii watched the flight of the arrow.

  It flew straight and true, striking a golden target the size of a man’s head. But Azhure, for all her effort in drawing, aiming and releasing the arrow, could not give the arrow the same power as SpikeFeather had, and the arrow head only penetrated the target superficially. It hung there for a long moment, then slowly slipped from the target and tumbled to the floor.

  “I hit it!” Azhure cried triumphantly, lowering the bow and turning to SpikeFeather, who stood with an expression of absolute amazement on his face. “It stuck for a moment. It did!” She laughed with joy. “Is the bow mine, SpikeFeather?”