Sinner (31 page)

H
e lay in bed, trying to find his courage. The Questors had used him for two leaps, each more painful than the last, if that were possible. And today, another one.

Why did they cause him so much pain? StarLaughter murmured in her sleep by his side, and turned over. Drago glanced at her. She slept peacefully enough, but
she
did not have to endure…

Although StarLaughter had, she assured him last night. She and all the children WolfStar had cast to their deaths had been used in this way.

“Me more than most,” she’d murmured comfortingly to Drago last night, “for I was more powerful and more highly trained than any of the children.”

“But they stopped using you…”

“A long time ago, my love.”

“Why?”

“Eventually our life force lost its potency. You are so useful because your life force is still so strong. You are only recently come through the Star Gate.”

Drago thought briefly about the baby. He was surely evidence that one’s life force ebbed considerably after four thousand years beyond the Star Gate.

“The Questors find it so easy to follow your trail back,” StarLaughter said, and then she paused and smiled at him. “We are so close, my love. Three or four more leaps and we shall be at the threshold of the Star Gate.”

Three or four more leaps. “Will you survive?” Raspu had asked. Drago didn’t know. He didn’t know if he could endure the pain.

“They’re draining me of all my power,” Drago said. “Is all my potential as an Enchanter being burned up? Am
I
being burned up?”

“Hush, lover,” StarLaughter whispered, holding him tight. “They will not drain you completely. They use only a small portion of your potential. When we tumble back through the Star Gate, your blood order will be reversed and you will come into your full potential as an Icarii Enchanter. The Questors have promised, and they will hold by that promise.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure. Why would the Questors lie to you?”

“I don’t know,” Drago said slowly.

“Then trust them.”

The Questors were waiting for them in their circular chamber. Outside shone a world of pure gold, the Hawkchilds spinning about the trees in an agitated cloud, whispering, whispering, whispering.

“Quick!” Sheol said, her voice brusque. “The interstellar winds are propitious for a giant leap. If we manage this, we may only have to do two more leaps instead of three.”

Sheol and Barzula thrust Drago onto the couch, and then all the Questors were crowding about, their hands heavy on his head and shoulders.

Mot smiled benevolently. “This won’t hurt –”

“Much,” finished Rox, and all five Questors laughed,
then bit deep into Drago’s soul, deeper than they’d ever gone before.

Pain seared through him. He arched his back in a silent agony – and felt some part of him dying, burning as though caught in a great conflagration. He’d never felt this so strongly before, but he knew what it was. The Questors
were
destroying his power. They had lied to him.

They were destroying him.

He screamed.

They leaped.

Into a world where there was no clear definition between ground and sky, where light and rain melded as one, where there was no colour save grey, no joy, no life, no ease of mind. The children whispered in a grey shadow through the trees – now petrified stone in this greyest of worlds – and StarLaughter sat and crooned to her undead child. The Questors laughed and spoke words of praise and comfort to Drago, and he outwardly let himself be comforted and reassured that yes, they did love and need him and no, they were not engaged in bleeding him to a useless hulk.

DragonStar SunSoar, Icarii Enchanter, would live again, they cried – and then they all laughed. They
howled
with laughter, and Drago stumbled away from them, deep into the forest of petrified stone, where he sank down against a tree and put his head in his hands.

Eventually he sat up and idly fingered the contents of his sack. The coins felt comforting, and Drago let his mind go blank as he sat there on that alien world, watching with unseeing eyes as the strange children leapt and cried amid the fossilised wood, and as StarLaughter sat smiling with the Questors, jamming her useless nipple yet again into the child’s mouth.

And Drago slipped into waking dream.

He dreamed of the hunt, and he felt the thrill of power surge through him. The forest slid by amid the thunder of hooves, and the hunters whooped with joy, sensing their quarry near. The children – the Hawkchilds – had been loosed and were swooping through the forest. The prey was frantic. Who? Drago wondered. Who?

The hunt surged forward.

Yes, everything
would
be alright. The Questors did not lie to him. They would not drain him completely, and his Icarii powers
would
be restored when they leaped through the Star Gate.

And then the entire perspective of the dream changed. Suddenly Drago found himself running through the forest. His heart was pounding, his legs were trembling with fatigue, cold sweat bathed his face and body. His breath rasped through his chest and throat – he couldn’t breathe at all! Trees loomed to either side, closing in on him, tightening about him.

Behind him a clarion sounded. Shrieks of joy reached out to him. The hunters were closer! There was a rustling and roaring in the trees – the Hawkchilds had spotted him!

Drago fell into thorn bushes and then scrambled out, blood pouring from a dozen deep cuts to his face and arms.

On the forest path behind him galloped a great black horse with an even darker rider. His armour absorbed light, but the point of his lance reflected it – it was a beam of light, coming straight for Drago’s chest.

He stumbled, and then fell.

He twisted onto his back, trying to scrabble away, but the horseman had reined his beast to a halt before him and Drago felt the lance in the centre of his chest.

With every breath he felt the point slide in deeper.

The pain was horrific.

“
Who are you?
” he screamed.

“I am DragonStar, come back from death,” replied the horseman, “and I hunt the Enemy.”

And he leaned his entire weight on the lance.

Drago lurched into consciousness, his breath rasping into his chest in preparation for a scream.

But it never came. He managed to control it, but he sat there for a very long time, remembering the feel of that lance as it had sliced through his lungs and heart.

“
T
here is trouble in Tencendor,” Axis fretted, rubbing his hands before the fire. “I can feel it. Caelum…Caelum has encountered trouble.”

“I, too, can feel it,” Azhure said, and shook out her thick black hair, letting it stream out in the wind that ran down the Icebear Coast.

There had been disturbances recently, disturbances they had felt in the very fibre of their beings. In their power.

With nothing else to blame it on, they thought it a product of the disharmony within Tencendor.

“But,” Azhure glanced at Axis, “we can do nothing. Tencendor is Caelum’s to do with as he will. Leave it, Axis, he will manage.”

Across the fire Adamon nodded. “Leave it, Axis.”

Axis sighed. “Yes. I will leave it.” He smiled wanly and looked about the group of Star Gods. “Did you have as much trouble leaving your mortal concerns behind?”

Flulia laughed. “Oh, my! I remember Adamon had to snatch me from my old laundry. I could not bear the way the new laundress starched the sheets.”

Adamon smiled. “I told her that a god had no business amid the washing. Flulia became quite angry, as I recall. She actually stamped her foot.”

Everyone laughed, and Pors leaned forward. “I chased the brown-legged frogs of Bogle Marsh through my dreams for a thousand years after I achieved my place with Adamon and Xanon. I missed them desperately. What you and Azhure are going through, Axis, is nothing unusual.”

Axis’ smile faded a little. “Then pray I do not fret at you for the next thousand years.”

There was quiet as the gods stared into the flames of the fire, remembering their individual experiences on the journey from mortal to immortal, then Adamon spoke up.

“There is good reason why I have called us all here together this night. Xanon and I,” he took his wife’s hand, “are worried. Look!”

Adamon threw his free hand over the fire in a sudden motion. Instantly stars became visible in the flames – comets, solar systems, galaxies. Axis thought it was like looking into the Star Gate, save that the lure of the Star Dance was mute here.

“Look,” Adamon said again, but now his voice had lost its urgency, and was soothing, hypnotic. “Look.”

His hand swirled over the fire again, and then yet again, and the flames roared higher. Every galaxy was exquisite in its detail, every movement of the stars faultlessly performed.

“Beautiful,” Azhure murmured.

“Beautiful,” Xanon echoed, “save here,” her finger pointed, “and here, and here.”

As her fingers moved, the flames danced and what they revealed made the others, save Adamon who had seen this already, gasp with horror.

Spreading through the universe, like a thin trail of blight, was a black shadow. It was as yet only tiny, and hardly noticeable – the others might well have missed it if it had not been for Xanon – but…

“It is coming directly for us!” whispered Nors, appalled.

“For the Star Gate,” Adamon said. “Yes.”

“How long has this been visible?” Axis asked.

“For less than a day,” Xanon replied. “Adamon and I noticed it last night.”

“It’s moving towards us with frightening speed,” her husband said. “Look, this was where it was when first we noticed it, and then, while we watched, it leapt forward, through this galaxy, and this, then came to rest here.”

“What is it?” Azhure twisted her hair nervously into a knot. “Is it the children?”

“Partly,” Adamon said. “They come with it. We can hear their whispers louder than ever before. But they are not driving it. They are not the power behind it.”

“Well…what
is
?” Axis asked. He remembered how he’d felt when Jayme had first told him about the invading ghostmen from the north. Then he’d had a premonition of disaster. But that was nothing compared to the foreboding that now swept through him.

Adamon shook his head. “I do not know. I have no knowledge of what it is. I can
feel
its power, but I do not understand it. What is worse, see how it has blacked out an as yet tiny portion of the stars? Axis, do you not feel what that has done to you?”

Axis stared into the flame-vision, then his entire body went rigid.

“Axis?” Azhure murmured, and laid a hand on his arm.

“By the Stars themselves,” Axis said hoarsely, “it has cut out the sound of the Star Dance from that area!”

“Yes,” Adamon said. “And if it comes closer, it will block out yet more of the Star Dance. What if, the heavens forbid, it blocks out
all
of the Star Dance?”

Each present was silent, appalled. If that happened, then all power based on the use of the Star Dance would cease. All Icarii magic and enchantment would wink out of existence.

The Star Gods would become mortal.

“What is it?” Pors fretted. “What is it?”

Adamon shook his head helplessly. “I cannot know, I have seen nothing like this before. Nothing! I do not even have a name for it!”

“Well, I do,” a voice put in from the wastes behind him, and the gods turned about, startled.

WolfStar SunSoar stood there, a black cloak wrapped about his body, despair on his face.

“They are the TimeKeeper Demons,” he said. “And they are coming for what was stolen from them.”

There was utter silence for the space of several breaths.

Then Adamon rose to his feet. “And how is it that
you
know of them, WolfStar SunSoar? Have your misdeeds beyond death yet to impact on Tencendor? Do your sins bring these TimeKeeper Demons to ravage
us
?”

“No, Adamon. I know of the TimeKeepers, but, for once,” he managed a small grin, “I am not responsible. May I sit?”

Adamon hesitated, then nodded, sitting himself.

WolfStar sat as close to the fire as he could, wrapping his cloak tightly about him.

“The TimeKeeper Demons are trouble,” he said. “Trouble loose in the universe. Catastrophe if they break through the Star Gate.”

“You met them beyond the Star Gate?” Axis asked. “Are they coming for
you
?”

WolfStar shook his head. “No, and no, although I think that with them they bring the children I threw into the Star Gate. I became aware of the TimeKeeper Demons in my time beyond the Star Gate, but their exact nature, name and purpose I discovered only after I had returned.

“First of all I should explain who, or rather, what, the TimeKeeper Demons are. They are a harmonious group of six demons, each of whom roams – hunts – through a particular period of the day or night. They are known as the TimeKeepers because no-one keeps such assiduous track of the passing hours as do they. There is Mot, the Demon of Hunger. He hunts at dawn. Barzula, the Demon of Tempest, hunts at midmorning. Sheol, Demon of Despair, hunts at midafternoon. Dusk belongs to Raspu, the Demon of Pestilence. And the night belongs to Rox, the Demon of Terror. They hunt for souls, for sustenance, and they prefer to call themselves the Questors. They quest, but always hunger, tempest, despair, pestilence and terror ride in their wake.”

“You said there were six,” said Narcis.

“The sixth is the reason the other five TimeKeepers have been battling for tens of thousands of years to find their way through the Star Gate into Tencendor. In their own way the five I have described are terrible enough, but the sixth is the worst of all. He is their leader, their father, their saviour. They are nothing without him.”

WolfStar paused and stared into the fire, but no-one spoke to disturb him. Finally he lifted his head.

“His name is Qeteb, the Destruction that wastes at midday. He is the Midday Demon. The others will nibble at your soul, but Qeteb will steal it and rape it for eternity.”

“Qeteb is
here
?” Adamon said. “He is somewhere in Tencendor?
That’s
why they are coming?”

“In a manner of speaking, Adamon. But let me tell the story. The TimeKeeper Demons, Qeteb among them, once ravaged free on a world far, far from here. There was a race on that world who were determined to break their power – and this they did. One day they trapped Qeteb – I can only imagine the courage and fortitude it took to do this – and they dismembered him. I talk not of a bodily dismemberment, but a dismemberment of his life, so to speak. They separated warmth, breath, movement and soul from his flesh, and they fled with them. They fled through the universe, using craft that had been designed for interstellar travel –”

“They used
craft
?” Xanon interrupted. “How…cumbersome.”

WolfStar shrugged. “They had a different kind of power to what we know, Xanon. Well, they fled through the universe on a journey that itself took many tens of thousands of our years. It ended here, on Tencendor. They crashed through the barriers that separated Tencendor from the universe –”

“Creating the Star Gate!” Adamon cried.

“Yes, creating the Star Gate. Their four craft, for they used a different craft for each of Qeteb’s life parts, crashed into Tencendor, blasting out the craters that filled with the waters of the Sacred Lakes.”

“So the Lakes take their power from the remnants of the craft of these ancient ones?” Azhure said.

“Yes, although the craft are very much intact. The creatures within them died, but buried beneath the Lakes are what the craft have become in order to protect Qeteb’s life parts.”

“So how is it,” Zest asked, “that these Demons approach now? Is it just that their journey has taken many tens of thousands of years, and is only now reaching its culmination…or is it…”

“Something else,” WolfStar said. “You have seen the path of darkness they have left behind them in the past day. You have deduced how they block out the Star Dance as they draw closer – we have all felt a diminution in our abilities over the past weeks. They are now moving faster than they ever have before. I believe there is a very good reason for that speed…and for all of us to fear their imminent arrival.”

“What reason?” Axis hissed. His hand groped momentarily at his side, as if he still had a sword there.

“I think Drago is leading them to the Star Gate,” WolfStar said directly.

For the second time that night there was utter silence.

“
What?
” Axis whispered.

“Drago?” Azhure said, as ashen-faced as Axis.

“That filth, curse the day he was conceived, has murdered Orr and leapt through the Star Gate.”

Murdered Orr?

“But I don’t understand,” said Axis. “Drago has no powers. The Star Gate would have killed him. And even if he
did
survive and find his way to these Demons, how is it that Drago has the power to catapult them through the stars like that?”

WolfStar looked Axis in the eye. “Because his father did not have the foresight to hide the Rainbow Sceptre where it could
never
be found! In a room in Sigholt, by the Stars! You might as well have hung it on a pole outside the front gate!”

There was instant uproar about the fire. Axis leapt to his feet, yelling at WolfStar. Azhure jumped up with him, hanging on to his arm, trying to calm him, yet sending a myriad of questions towards WolfStar at the same time. Silton and Narcis were also on their feet, shouting not only at WolfStar, but at the entire heavens in general.

“
Be quiet!
” Adamon thundered, and silence fell upon the company.

“Be silent,” he repeated. “Now, I am going to ask WolfStar a series of questions, and I want
no-one
interrupting.” He shot Axis a furious glare and he subsided, Azhure at his side.

“Good. Silton? Narcis? Your places, if you please. WolfStar,” Adamon turned to the Enchanter, who had remained calm in the face of all the anger directed his way, “how is it that the Rainbow Sceptre can help the Demons move so fast?”

“Because it is in large part composed of the power of the craft of the ancient ones. I assume the Demons are using that power to catapult themselves forward.”

“How do you know that Drago has the Sceptre?”

WolfStar explained about the message Orr had sent from the Star Gate chamber. He recalled SpikeFeather’s vision for them, and the Star Gods watched in horror as Drago fought Orr, then killed him with the Sceptre.

“The Sceptre has gone from Sigholt, Axis,” WolfStar said. “Of course, if the enchantments that were
supposed
to hide it had been worked better –”

“Enough, WolfStar!” Adamon snapped. “But we did not know that Drago stepped through the Star Gate –”

“Faraday was there,” Axis put in, his voice quiet. “Did you not see her watching from the pillars?”

“Yes,” WolfStar said. “Faraday was there. She is now on the Island of Mist and Memory, inhabiting her human form once again.”

Axis and Azhure both jumped.
With StarDrifter?

“And you saw her?” Adamon asked.

“Yes. She…” WolfStar hesitated, “she said that Drago fled through one of the passageways after murdering Orr. She said he must still be in Tencendor. But I do not believe her. I think she is lying to protect Drago.”

“Why would she do that?” Azhure asked. “She has no reason to like or admire him.”

“I do not know why, Azhure. But Faraday was lying, I am sure of it, and I think the certain proof lies in the trail of darkness we can see spreading through the stars. The Demons are on their way. Suddenly. With such power and vigour as they have never shown previously. I can only assume that, yes, Drago has passed over the Rainbow Sceptre to them.”

“He ever had a twisted mind!” Axis said viciously. “Look, Azhure! Look at what he has done now! Subduing his Enchanter powers did nothing. You should have –”

“Killed him?” Azhure cried. “Do
you
think you could kill your own flesh and blood?”

“I
disown
him as my flesh and blood,” Axis said, more angry than Azhure had ever seen him. “And yes, I could kill him for what he has tried to do to my family, for what he
has
done to my family, and what he
will
do to Tencendor! My friends,” Axis looked about the circle, “don’t you understand what will happen if these TimeKeepers come close enough to block out the Star Dance completely? They will ravage at will!
No-one
will be able to stop them!”