Sinner

by Sara Douglass

  “Oh?” Adamon said. “Do you suggest that we go through the Star Gate after it? None of us,” he waved at the other Star Gods, “can do it, for we are so peculiarly tied to this world. Who else…you?”

  WolfStar shuddered. “No, not me. Our only chance to regain it is when the Demons come through the Star Gate – if the Demons bring it back with them.”

  “We wait until they are here?” Axis said.

  WolfStar nodded. “If we cannot stop them beforehand, then that is the only option left to us. And then to find some means to snatch it back. I’m sorry. It’s all we can do.”

  “But how can we combat them for the Sceptre?” Azhure cried, despair all over her face. “By the time the TimeKeeper Demons are here they will have completely blocked out the Star Dance. We will be as ants before their power! And Caelum? What chance has he against these Demons with all his power gone? I can’t see –”

  “Azhure, my dear, be calm,” WolfStar said gently. “We will get the Sceptre back for Caelum. By whatever means we can.”

  47

  Niah’s Grove

  Faraday paused at the door to Niah’s room, listened, then pushed it open. She moved wrapped in an aura of dream, so she made no sound, and she was virtually indistinguishable from the shadows. Every day Faraday found different uses for her newly enriched power, and this current trick was a most useful accomplishment.

  The room was dark, filled only with the sound of sleep. Faraday stood a while, catching her bearings, learning the layout of the room, memorising the patterns of the bed, chests, hanging robes and mirrors.

  Then she moved silently towards the bed.

  Niah lay there. Alone. Faraday had more than expected to find WolfStar here tangled with her, their bodies a mass of damp flesh and twisted feathers. But WolfStar had abandoned his lover for this night. No matter. Faraday could act whether WolfStar was here or not.

  She sat on a stool by the bed and watched Niah sleep. The woman slept awkwardly, not sure what to do with her wings. They hung to either side of the bed, drifting across the floor, Niah’s naked body pale and vulnerable in the faint moonlight. Waiting, perhaps, in case WolfStar found the time to visit.

  Faraday’s eyes rested on Niah’s belly. There was only the faintest suggestion of a roundness there – it was far too early in the pregnancy for any noticeable swelling yet. Faraday leaned forward, and placed both her hands on Niah’s belly.

  The woman stirred, and Faraday whispered soothingly to her, quieting her, sending her deeper into sleep.

  Once Niah had stilled, her breathing now so quiet and slow Faraday knew she was lost in her dreams again, she began to knead her fingers into Niah’s belly. Probing. Deep. Looking, sensing, for the baby.

  There. The slight hardness of the thickened walls of her womb. All depended on…yes! Faraday sensed the life force growing there. A girl child. Good. Very good.

  “What a lovely baby,” she whispered. “So healthy. Such a willing receptacle.”

  Then she lifted her hands from Niah’s body and sat back. She opened her mind to dream, seeking that which was lost.

  She opened her mind to Niah’s Grove. Of course. Here Zenith had last drawn breath, here Niah’s old body mouldered, here Niah had finally consumed Zenith altogether.

  Faraday looked about the grove that she could see in the shadow-lands of dream. Like all things in the shadow-lands, the grove was insubstantial. The forest faded in and out of view beyond the ring of nine great trees. Faraday had planted these trees herself to honour Niah’s memory, and now she regarded them wryly. Perhaps she should not have been so willing. This grove and this grave had harboured Niah’s spirit as a scabbed wound harbours infection.

  Here Zenith had lost her fight.

  Faraday wandered slowly about the grassy ring. Moonwildflowers grew here in abandon, thicker around the centre. Here Axis had brought Isfrael to see her. Here Azhure had wept over her lost mother. Here. On the site of Smyrton.

  Perhaps we should have left it, Faraday thought. She remembered the day Azhure had loosed her power to raze Smyrton to the ground. She remembered the foul wind that had swept over them. Infection again. Had it befouled Niah, tied to this spot…waiting, waiting, waiting?

  She raised her head and looked about. “Zenith?” she whispered, the whisper echoing strangely about the trees. “Zenith?”

  There was nothing, but Faraday was patient. If there still was a Zenith, then here she would be.

  “Zenith?”

  Faraday sat in the very centre of the grove, ringed by Moonwildflowers, and waited. She sat, and absorbed the stillness of the shadow-forest about her, and listened to the air as it moved damply about her.

  A movement. There, to her left.

  Very, very slowly, for Zenith must be truly lost and frightened, Faraday turned her head towards the movement and smiled. After a moment, she lifted her arm and held out her hand, palm uppermost.

  Zenith.

  “I do not know where I am.”

  Zenith, come sit with me.

  Another movement, stronger this time, and a form rose from the grass at the edge of the trees. It was wraith-like, almost apologetic, but it was Zenith’s form.

  “I am lost.”

  “Surely, sweetheart.” Now Faraday used her speaking voice, and widened her smile. “Come to me. Let me show you the way home.”

  The form drifted towards her. She wrung her hands, and tears slid down her cheeks. “I do not know what to do.”

  “Here.” Faraday patted the grass. “There is space here.”

  The form drifted across and sank down beside Faraday. She was so ethereal that Faraday thought gossamer would seem like iron scaffolding beside her.

  Zenith. There was not much of her left. Niah had almost won. A week or two more, and she would have won.

  Faraday folded her hands in her lap and gazed serenely at this apparition. “Poor Zenith. Would you like me to show you the way home?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Oh!” Faraday almost forgot herself and laughed, but she stifled her merriment before it could find voice and frighten Zenith away. Zenith had never seen her, and had never known her human form.

  “I am Faraday, Zenith. Once Duchess of Ichtar, once Queen of Achar, now just Faraday, owner of her own soul and destiny.”

  The apparition smiled wistfully. “To own your own soul and destiny…that must be true happiness.”

  “Ah, it is, Zenith, it is. I was bound by the Prophecy of the Destroyer, bound by my guardianship of the trees, bound by the Mother and by my love for your father for too long. Now I am free.”

  What was left of Zenith nodded. “I am glad, Faraday. I did not envy your role in the Prophecy.”

  “And I would that you be free, too. Do you want that?”

  “Niah is too strong. I tried to fight her…but she was so tenacious, so determined.”

  “She had the strength of the grave behind her, my dear, and you could not fight that. You did not have that experience. Then. Now, of course, Niah has made a ghastly mistake in banishing you to the one place where you can obtain the experience and yet still return. Zenith,” Faraday’s tone turned brusque, “I have a plan.”

  “Good,” Zenith said, and her tone finally made Faraday laugh.

  “Yes, extremely good. Niah has taken your body to the Island of Mist and Memory. There she continues to deepen her affair with WolfStar –”

  Zenith turned her head aside.

  “– and grows his child within your womb. Zenith, that child will be your saviour.”

  “I do not want it!”

  “Undoubtedly not. It is a product of rape – who could love a child of that? And who knows what WolfStar and Niah can breed between them? Listen to me, Zenith. You must fight.”

  “How?”

  “Can you still feel Niah? Feel the presence of her?”

  Zenith nodded.

  “Very well. Eventually we will use that child for our own ends, and that infant girl shall be your sa
viour. But first we must get you back to your body. Back to what Niah has claimed.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Zenith, this shadow-grove is but one part of the shadow-lands that mimic entirely the world of waking. We can travel through these lands, travel towards the shadow dormitory of the priestesses where lies Niah.”

  Zenith looked puzzled, but that puzzlement was underlaid with hope. “Tonight?”

  Faraday smiled sadly. “Nay, child, not in one night, although we will make a start tonight. It will take us many, many nights. But get there we will, and we must get there before some other spirit inhabits the baby-child within Niah.”

  “How long do I have?”

  “A month perhaps. I shall come back each night and help you.”

  “A month only to walk to the Island of Mist and Memory?”

  “Every step we take in the shadow-lands equals fifteen in the world of waking. We travel much faster here.” Faraday smiled wryly. “It is one of the advantages of wraithdom, I suppose.”

  “Then we had best begin.”

  Faraday stood, then helped the Zenith-apparition to her feet. “My dear, the closer we get to the Island of Mist and Memory, the harder Niah will fight.”

  “She will be aware that I approach?”

  “Not as such – that’s why we move at night, only when she sleeps – but she will know something is wrong. Her own sleep-mind will raise barriers for you, try to prevent you. Zenith, there will come a time when each step you take towards the island will be agonising. It will go on for night after night. Can you face that?”

  Zenith laughed, low and bitter. “Do I want life? Come Faraday, let me lean on you, and we shall take this first step.”

  48

  Carlon’s Welcome

  “Still nothing from our rear?” Zared asked Theod yet again as they sat their horses a half-hour’s ride north-east of Carlon.

  “No, my Prince,” Theod said. “Caelum must be suffering from shock. He has not sent so much as a scout after us. Not,” he said glumly, “that he has many to send.”

  Zared turned away from Theod, his thoughts bleak. When Theod had caught him up with the devastating news that Caelum had ridden his force straight into Kastaleon without so much as a dog to scout the place out, and had thus suffered the full force of the explosion, Zared had blanched.

  “How many?” he had asked quietly.

  “Between three and four thousand dead at least, my Prince. And scores more injured nigh unto death.”

  “Caelum?”

  Theod had not known, but Zared refused, refused, to consider Caelum dead. Besides, had Caelum died Axis would surely have known and acted.

  Why in the name of every god in existence hadn’t Caelum sent in a scouting party first?

  Zared had been prepared to risk five or six deaths, much as he regretted them, but he had yet to come to terms with the horror of three or four thousand dead. All he’d wanted to do was destroy Kastaleon and hold Caelum up for a few days. What he had done was create a situation where war was unavoidable.

  His hands were tied, and through his own action. He could either surrender himself – an idea anathema to the proud Zared – or he could work to make his position unassailable.

  His doubts had been blown away as forcibly as most of Caelum’s force. He now had no choice. He must make himself King of Achar, with Leagh at his side. Once King he could hopefully rally the support of hundreds of thousands of Acharites feverishly loyal to their resurrected monarch.

  Even Caelum might think twice about setting the Strike Force on the entire West and North.

  At the least, Zared thought with only the tiniest degree of humour, he might think about sending in a scouting party first. Frankly, Zared was amazed that six days after the destruction of Kastaleon, the Icarii Strike Force was still not yet wheeling down on him from the sky.

  “I would have set everything I had after me had I been Caelum,” he muttered. “What in the name of all gods is he up to?”

  They had moved south fast from Kastaleon. Desperately fast. They’d ridden a day, then commandeered river boats to carry them towards Carlon. This morning Zared had ordered the boats to put to shore, and land his men so they could ride the final league.

  Zared hoped that Goldman had been right in saying Carlon would support him, and that western Tencendor would rise up to back his claim to the throne. The last thing he needed was to ride into an apathetic city.

  “She still does not know?” Theod said softly beside Zared, breaking his thoughts.

  Zared glanced over his shoulder. Leagh was several lengths behind him, riding with Herme. Zared reined his horse closer to Theod’s.

  “No. I have not liked to tell her. Who knows if Askam lives or dies? It would be cruel to tell her.”

  Theod looked at him with concern, thinking to say more, but Zared’s gaze was now fixed on the road before them.

  “Look! Is that Goldman?”

  A group of five horsemen had ridden from Carlon’s gates, still some three hundred paces distant. Two outriders carried poles from which fluttered pennants and standards.

  “Look,” Theod said, “they bear the standards of Carlon…and of Zared, Prince of the North.”

  Zared felt his muscles relax a little; he had not realised he was so tense until this moment. He pulled in his own horse, then waved his column to a halt.

  There was a movement to his side, and Herme and Leagh rode up.

  “Goldman,” Zared said, indicating the riders, but Leagh said nothing.

  The group of riders covered the distance to Zared at a brisk canter. It was indeed Jannymire Goldman, with four well-dressed companions.

  “Prince Zared,” Goldman said, reining his horse to a halt three paces from Zared, “I offered the support of the traders and guilds of Carlon, and here it is. May I present Mayor Gregoric Sandmeyer, and the Guild Masters of the Wool, Fish and Grain merchants’ guilds.”

  Zared raised his eyebrows. A powerful coterie indeed. “And do you also present me Carlon, Master Goldman and Mayor Sandmeyer? I have at my back a force of some five hundred men. Hardly enough to overrun Carlon’s walls should I be forced to do so.”

  “I think you will hardly be ‘forced’, Prince,” Sandmeyer said, bowing deeply from his saddle. He was a barrel-chested man, with strong features and startling eyes. “Carlon – indeed, Achar – eagerly awaits you.”

  Then he turned to Leagh, and offered her another, if smaller, bow. “My Princess, I am glad to see you again. It has been too long. And you ride by Prince Zared’s side. If I may be so bold, for many know that the Prince has been petitioning for your hand for many a long year, may I ask if you ride as his wife?”

  “Not yet,” she said shortly. Sandmeyer was being too forward. “I have yet to come to a decision.”

  “I see,” Sandmeyer said softly, and looked at Goldman.

  “I think, Princess,” Goldman said, “that Carlon’s reception may make your decision a little easier for you.”

  Zared had hoped Goldman would organise a welcoming crowd, but he had never envisioned the tumultuous welcome that Carlon put on for him.

  As they urged their horses forward, Zared became aware of a muted roar. Initially it puzzled him, but as he drew closer to the main gates he realised – with absolute astonishment – that it was the thunder of a crowd tens of thousands strong.

  He looked at Leagh – they now rode side by side at the head of the column, the others having drawn back – and saw that her face was pale, as astonished as his.

  And then they were inside the gates, and inside a maelstrom.

  The noise of the crowd was overwhelming, and Zared had to grab at the bridle of Leagh’s mare as it shied in fright. One of Carlon’s militiamen ran forward, and took it from him, and Zared leaned back in the saddle, trying to absorb the sights and sounds before him.

  Carlon’s streets were lined ten-deep with people. Others crowded balconies and roofs. Everyone was waving something, whether rib
bons or pennants or banners; some were the rose and gold of his familial standard, others were the royal blue and scarlet of the Acharite throne.

  As one, they roared his name.

  “Zared! Zared! Zared!”

  Atop the shouts of the crowd came the trumpeting of horns – scores of them – and the beating of drums and the clashing of cymbals. The noised bounced off walls, echoing wildly through the streets and then into the sky.

  Zared stared, then he laughed, almost overwhelmed with the emotion poured out in his welcome. He spurred his horse forward and waved, and the noise, if possible, tripled.

  Leagh, riding at a more sedate pace behind him, was utterly stunned. She could hardly comprehend the sights and the sounds. She had seen nothing like this before. Nothing. Even Caelum’s crowning on the shores of Grail Lake had been a sedate seventh-day picnic compared to this.

  Askam had never pulled a crowd of more than a thousand onto the streets, but Leagh thought that Carlon’s entire sixty thousand must have abandoned home and work and school to pay homage to Zared.

  And that was what it was, she realised. Homage, not welcome.

  Before her the crowd surged, trying to follow Zared’s progress. He had been mobbed, but did not seem afraid. Instead he was laughing, and leaning down from his horse, grabbing hands, touching faces.

  “King Zared!” the crowd now roared. “King Zared!”

  Then the mob were crowding her, too, and she heard them call out her name.

  “Leagh! Leagh! Queen Leagh!”

  Some ten paces in front of her, separated by hundreds of people, Zared swung his horse about and caught her eye.

  Leagh stared at him, shaking. She had never realised…never realised…

  They were led, eventually, to the dazzling ancient Icarii palace on the highest hill in the city.

  Not to the Prince’s palace.

  The Icarii palace had been the one used by the former Kings of Achar, passing into the hands of the SunSoar family once Axis had destroyed the throne.

  Now, apparently, it would again be used by an Acharite king.