Enchanter

by Sara Douglass

  Belial and StarDrifter stood, frozen. Waiting. Time passed immeasurably around them. Waiting.

  And then, snap! they were freed from whatever bound them and the air shimmered and Axis stepped forth into the room and he bore Azhure in his arms and she seemed almost lifeless, for the skin and the flesh had been stripped from her back until the blood ran in colourful rivulets down Axis’ breeches and boots to the floor.

  “Help me,” he whispered.

  65

  AZHURE (2)

  Faraday ran along the corridors of the palace, her skirts bunched in her hands, her breath heaving. She had fallen asleep sometime after Axis had left her and had then slept through until well past dawn. Only after she had washed, dressed and breakfasted did her new maid tell her something of the commotion in the palace.

  What had he done?

  The maid had heard only vague rumours, and eventually Faraday had rushed from the chamber, found one of the palace guard, and asked him where Axis was. Where he had taken Azhure.

  In the interrogation chamber she found only blood and emptiness—but she could feel the horror and fear still resonating about the room.

  What had he done?

  From the interrogation chamber Faraday followed the trail of blood and lingering horror until now she ran along one of the main corridors.

  Where? Ah, one of the principal apartment complexes, kept for visiting diplomats. He had taken her in there.

  Faraday burst into the antechamber of the apartment complex and stopped dead.

  In the antechamber were crammed StarDrifter, Belial, FreeFall, EvenSong, Magariz, Rivkah, Ho’Demi. All silent. All pale. All shocked. Among them paced nervous Alaunt, as silent as the people, but just as obviously upset. One scratched at the closed door to the main chamber.

  Frantic footsteps sounded in the corridor behind her, and a man collided with Faraday as he scrambled into the antechamber.

  Ysgryff. Dark, angry, and only a breath away from violence. “Where is he?” he growled. “Where is he? What has he done to her?”

  Before anyone could answer a baby whimpered, and Faraday glanced to one side. Rivkah sat patting Azhure’s baby son ineffectually as he wailed and twisted feebly in her arms.

  Faraday stepped over to Rivkah. “Give me the baby,” she said softly, and held out her hands. Rivkah shrugged and handed the baby over.

  Hello, Caelum. My name is Faraday.

  The baby twisted around to look at her face. Her. Will you help Mama? Her name is Azhure.

  Faraday smiled softly and stroked the boy’s cheek. Azhure. What a lovely name. Is she with your father?

  The boy’s mind clouded. He was afraid of her, Faraday. Why was he afraid? Will you help Mama? He was quiet now, soothed by this woman who held him. He could feel the warmth and the love of her power and it comforted him.

  If I can, Caelum. Shush now while I talk with the others.

  She looked up at StarDrifter. “Tell me.”

  StarDrifter took an anguished breath. “Axis and I—and I am as much to blame for what happened here as Axis—thought that Azhure was WolfStar.”

  “What?” Ysgryff hissed.

  “She started to use Dark Music, Ysgryff,” StarDrifter pleaded. “What else were we to think? We had no choice. She had to be WolfStar.”

  “Ysgryff, wait,” Faraday said urgently, stepping forward to lay a calming hand on Ysgryff’s arm. “StarDrifter. None of us here know what you are talking about. Who is this WolfStar? And why would you think that Azhure was this person?”

  Slowly, falteringly, StarDrifter explained about the renegade Enchanter-Talon, about his crimes against the Icarii race, about his return through the Star Gate. He explained how Axis, he and MorningStar believed that WolfStar was disguised as one of Axis’ confidants, one of those closest to him. The traitor of the third verse of the Prophecy.

  “MorningStar always believed it to be Azhure,” StarDrifter said. “But Axis and I refused to believe her. Yet there were so many inconsistencies. So much hidden and strange. And Caelum,” he waved at the baby in Faraday’s arms, “has so much Icarii blood. So much. This morning…when Azhure used the Dark Music of the Stars to destroy the Gryphon…what were we to think, Faraday?” StarDrifter pleaded. “What were we to think?”

  Encumbered with the baby, Faraday was able to restrain Ysgryff no longer. He leaned forward and literally hauled StarDrifter to his feet by the feathers on the back of his neck. “If he has destroyed her, StarDrifter, then by all the gods that live in the Temple of the Stars, I will destroy you!”

  As Belial half rose to his feet, Ysgryff threw the shocked StarDrifter back onto the bench. “Personally, StarDrifter,” he said through clenched jaws, “I hope that one day WolfStar will appear and hurl both you and Axis into the Star Gate in one of his crazed experiments, because that is all you two deserve for what you have done to that woman.”

  “Ysgryff, please,” Faraday said gently. “Restrain yourself. Belial, what happened below?”

  Belial told her what he could. “But that’s all I know, Faraday. Not much. Azhure took Axis somewhere, showed him something, but I don’t know what. When they reappeared the skin was hanging off Azhure’s back in strips and Axis appeared half mad himself. He brought her up here and has allowed no-one in the chamber since. I think he will kill himself if Azhure dies—and even if she doesn’t, I think he will kill himself for what he has done to her.”

  “Ysgryff, wait here,” Faraday said, turning to the Prince of Nor. “I think you will have more to do with solving this mystery than anyone else.”

  She turned and walked towards the door.

  “Faraday,” Rivkah began, concerned. The last person who had tried to go inside had been confronted with an Axis so furious and so wild that they had literally slammed the door behind them in their haste to get out.

  “No,” Faraday smiled, her hand on the doorknob. “Axis will not throw out either myself or Caelum. Be calm. Wait.”

  Then she twisted the doorknob and walked inside, closing the door gently behind her.

  The chamber was dim, the windows shuttered. Faraday stood still, adjusting her eyes to the light. Finally a slight movement caught her eye.

  Axis rose from where he had been kneeling by a bed along the far wall of the room, a bloodied rag in his hand. He did not say anything, just stared at Faraday with sunken and haunted eyes as she moved towards him.

  Faraday reached the other side of the bed, hesitated slightly, then sat down, looking at the woman lying curled up on her side.

  “Hello, Azhure,” she smiled, her face gentle. “My name is Faraday. I would we could have met in slightly happier circumstances.”

  Azhure was conscious, her blue eyes wide and dark with pain. She stared at Faraday a moment, then gazed at her son.

  “Caelum is well, but he is concerned for you, Azhure.”

  Azhure reached out a trembling hand and touched Caelum. Faraday noted with concern how weak the woman was, how pale her skin, how it hung in loose, papery folds over her flesh. Azhure let her hand fall listlessly back to the bed. She was so weak and in so much pain that even her son could not interest her.

  “You have made a mess of this, haven’t you Axis?” Faraday said, her voice low, turning her head to gaze levelly at Axis.

  Axis sank to his knees on the other side of the bed. He had been sponging Azhure’s back with warm water, trying to stop the blood flow, but the water in the bowl was now deep red itself, and the flesh still hung in strips from Azhure’s back. Bone showed in several places.

  “I cannot help her,” Axis whispered. “I cannot heal. It is one of the things for which there is no Song. Faraday,” his voice broke, “do I have to wait for her to begin to die before I can help her?”

  “Axis,” Faraday said, making her voice as firm as she could. “Take your son and go and sit in the corner of the room. I would spend some time alone with Azhure.”

  Axis stood, dropped the bloodied rag back into the water, and reached over t
he bed for Caelum. The baby stiffened a little in Faraday’s arms.

  Go to your father, Caelum. He needs comfort.

  As she passed the baby over Faraday stared Axis hard in the eye. “Caelum needs to know what happened, Axis. If you don’t tell him then he will never trust you again. Now, go sit in the chair and talk to your son. Don’t disturb Azhure or myself.”

  Axis nodded, cuddled Caelum to his chest, and walked slowly over to the distant chair, slumping down and murmuring to the baby.

  Faraday reached down and took one of Azhure’s hands in both of hers, rubbing it with her thumbs, gently, soothingly. “Now,” she smiled. “I also need to know what happened. Tell me. Believe me, it will help if you talk about it.”

  Her touch comforted Azhure, and slowly, very slowly, her words heavy and awkward, she began to tell Faraday what had happened that morning.

  “Wait,” Faraday stopped her after only a few minutes. “Did you know what you were doing to that Gryphon?” Her thumbs continued to stroke the back of Azhure’s hand.

  Azhure shook her head. “No. It attacked. I was terrified. I was sure that Caelum and I would die. I had…I had no weapons. It lunged for us, and I raised my arm to protect myself,” she lifted her free arm slightly to show Faraday the open tear that ran down the fleshy part of her lower arm, “and the creature tore into me with its beak. The pain, the terror, something…something broke inside of me. Something…opened. Faraday.” Her eyes widened, pleading for understanding. “I don’t know what I did! I am not WolfStar! Why should Axis think that I was? Why?”

  “Shush, sweetheart,” Faraday comforted, stroking the damp hair back from Azhure’s brow. Faraday quietly told Azhure what StarDrifter had told them outside, and Azhure stared disbelieving at the woman before her.

  “Oh,” she said, inadequately. Had they doubted her that long?

  “Azhure. What happened in the chamber below? I need to know, and you need to talk about it.”

  Azhure was silent for a long time, but Faraday was patient, and waited, holding Azhure’s hand in one of hers, lifting the other to stroke the woman’s hair, soothing, calming, quieting. Eventually, Azhure began to speak.

  She spoke of Axis’ anger, of his sudden revulsion, of his violence. It had reminded her, she said, of the man she had called her father, Hagen. She spoke of the nightmare that began on the top of Spiredore and continued in the interrogation chamber. Of the pain and the fear and the terrible aloneness she had felt when Axis had started to tear her mind apart in his efforts to find where WolfStar lurked.

  And then the same thing that had happened when the Gryphon attacked. Something inside of her had…snapped…released.

  “And it hasn’t completely closed even now, Faraday. I can still feel something in the darkness there, calling to me.”

  “We will talk about that later,” Faraday said gently. “Just tell me what happened next.”

  Azhure told Faraday of the vision she and Axis had shared. Of her mother’s horrible death at Hagen’s hands as he sought to discover the identity of Azhure’s father.

  “I can remember so much now, Faraday,” Azhure whispered. “I remember that my wings had started to sprout some five or six weeks earlier. Mama had smiled and laughed when she saw them one day as she bathed me, and said they were a gift from my father, but she tried to hide them from Hagen. As they grew larger she would bind them to my back with a great linen bandage so my back would appear flat. But one day Hagen came home unexpectedly, and found me sitting on Mama’s lap, the bandages undone and my back exposed.”

  Azhure’s eyes were dark with guilt. “Oh, Faraday! It was my fault! I had complained that the bandages itched, and Mama had taken them down to scratch my back.”

  Faraday eyes filled with tears. “Go on.”

  Haltingly, Azhure told of how Hagen had come at her with his knife, day after day, determined to cut any remnants of the wings from her back. “Weeks it went on,” Azhure whispered so low that Faraday had to bend down to hear her. “Weeks. Every morning Hagen would inspect my back. And if he saw anything…anything…that looked wing-like, then he simply cut it out.”

  Faraday was appalled. “Didn’t the neighbours suspect? Didn’t they ask what was going on?”

  Azhure shook her head. “Hagen told them that Mama had run away with a pedlar—he buried her body secretly one night—and that I was sick with a simple fever. Sometimes one of the village women would come in with food, but even if they saw the bloody bandages on my back, they never asked what was going on. They believed whatever Hagen told them.” She paused, then spoke again. “Even I came to believe the story that Mama had run off in the night with the pedlar. It was less painful, safer, believing that than the truth I had witnessed.”

  Faraday was almost overcome by her anger. Damn them! They must have realised what had happened! How had Azhure survived her life in Smyrton without going mad?

  “I survived by becoming what Hagen wanted,” Azhure said. “I lived the lie that he wanted. I became as normal as I could. It was the only way to survive—whenever Hagen thought that I acted in any way…‘strange’…then he would beat me until I screamed for forgiveness. I learned not to…not to use…”

  “Not to use what, Azhure?” Faraday asked. This was an important moment. Azhure had to admit to who, to what, she was.

  “Not to use my powers,” Azhure finally whispered, and her head swivelled to look at Faraday again. “Faraday, Mama said that I was a child of the gods. That I had to seek the answer on Temple Mount to find out who I was.”

  “And so you shall,” Faraday said. “But something tells me that you may find some of the answers well before you step onto Temple Mount. No, wait, Azhure. Later. Now I must do something about your back. Did it break open again during your vision this morning?”

  Azhure nodded. “As I relived those weeks at Hagen’s hands as he tore the wings from my back time and time again—oh Faraday! They were so determined to reform! So resolved!—so the scars on my back opened again.”

  “Well now.” Faraday smiled. “Your Enchanter Lover has singularly failed to help your pain, but I think that the Mother will be able to help a little.”

  Faraday stood and moved around to the other side of the bed, noticing as she did so that both Axis and Caelum had fallen asleep in the chair on the far side of the room.

  “Let me tell you about the Mother,” Faraday said softly, gently lifting the rough bandages that Axis had laid in a few places and inspecting Azhure’s back. As she did so she talked about the Mother, her voice as soothing as her hands.

  Azhure closed her eyes and listened. Faraday spoke of wondrous things. Of Groves and Woods and fairy creatures. Of old women and strange gardens. Of the Mother herself and of her love for all nature and for the earth. Raum had told Azhure very little about the Sacred Grove, and what Axis had told her had only frightened her, but now Faraday’s words made Azhure realise what a remarkable place Faraday had discovered.

  Faraday’s words slowed and her eyes glowed with power. Slowly, slowly, she began to dig her hands into Azhure’s back.

  Azhure stiffened, almost crying out with the excruciating pain that Faraday’s probing fingers caused her, but Faraday continued to talk and Azhure clung to her words, using them as an anchor for her sanity. The room swam as she came close to fainting, but Faraday’s voice strengthened, and Azhure managed to hold on to consciousness.

  Gradually the pain receded and Azhure’s back grew warm. Her body relaxed and she felt strength flow through her. Faraday’s hands felt good. For a long time she lay there, feeling Faraday’s hands, listening to her voice.

  “Your wings are gone,” Faraday said suddenly, breaking her tale of the Enchanted Woods and the Mother. “Hagen did a thorough task. I cannot bring them back for you.”

  The wings had caused her so much pain that Azhure truly did not care that they were gone for good.

  Faraday was silent now as her hands traced long, lazy strokes down Azhure’s back from shoulders to
buttocks. There was no pain at all. Azhure closed her eyes and let her whole body relax against Faraday’s touch.

  “Come,” Faraday eventually said, rolling Azhure over onto her back. “Let’s get you out of what remains of this nightgown and wash you down. You are smeared all over with blood.”

  As she sat up and pulled the nightgown over her shoulders Azhure realised that her back was completely healed. She could not even feel the tug and pull of the ridged scars that had been with her for over twenty years.

  Faraday found some clean, warm water set by the fire and washed Azhure down. She smiled her warm, lovely smile and Azhure suddenly laughed.

  “Thank you,” she said and grasped Faraday’s hands momentarily. “Thank you.”

  “I have sometimes thought that I have lived a troublesome life these past two years,” Faraday said quietly. “But I find that my own pain has been nothing compared to what you have suffered most of your life. Azhure, we both find ourselves at a crossroads here this day. It is the first time we have met, and we have so much to say each to the other, yet we must both continue on our way. I think that, after so much pain, you will walk a road into joy and happiness, while I…” Faraday dropped her eyes. “I think that I will find yet more pain before I find happiness again.”

  “Faraday,” Azhure pleaded. “I am so sorry for what I have done. I would have given anything that I was not here, not standing between you and Axis.”

  “Hush,” Faraday said. “We are all caught in this damned and cruel Prophecy. None of us can escape. I do not blame you for what has happened, although,” Faraday’s eyes and voice grew bitter, “I fault Axis for the way he has behaved. He has treated us both harshly. He is quick to action, a quality usually commendable in a fighting man, but not when combined with his temper and that streak of cruelty he sometimes displays.”