he said, reaching out and placing a hand on her arm. “Do this for me, and do it for Leagh.”
Zenith hesitated only a heartbeat longer, then she gave a curt nod. “Come with me.”
The corridors were darkened, only a few subdued torches lit to cast pitiful pools of light in isolated corners. Shadows flickered and lifted, seeming to envelop them in waves and then retreat, as if they had moved too far from the total darkness for their own comfort. Zenith led Zared to a room on the floor above his, at the end of the corridor.
He stopped, surprised. “This was my mother’s chamber!”
“And so here came Magariz to Rivkah, before they confessed their love to the world. Now, Zared, listen to me. I will wait outside. Keeping watch – but not only for those who might tread this way. I can also sense you, and what you do … do you understand?”
Zared nodded, his expression bitter.
“If you try to bed with her,” Zenith continued, her tone now as hard as Zared’s eyes, “I will know and I will stop you. You may speak with her, you may hold her, but you will not have the chance to win the West via the trickery of an illegitimate child!”
“Caelum has an utterly loyal sister in you!” Zared hissed, furious that Zenith would intrude upon them with her power.
“I am utterly loyal to Tencendor,” Zenith said quietly, holding Zared’s stare. “Treat Leagh with the respect that I have for the peace of our land.”
“Let me in, damn you!”
And Zenith opened the door.
The chamber was even darker than the corridor, for Leagh had apparently shuttered her windows tightly closed. Zared stood, trying to get his bearings, wondering if Leagh had heard his whispered conversation with Zenith.
Apparently not, for the room was quiet save for the soft sound of gentle breathing, and Zared moved carefully towards the source.
His hip banged into the corner of a table, and Zared halted, his eyes stinging with the pain, his ears straining to hear if Leagh had woken.
No, she still breathed deep in sleep across the room, and Zared resumed his movement, now with a slight limp. He’d never wished Enchanter powers for himself until this moment. By all the stars above, he wished he could see where he was going!
But even as he thought that, a pale bed cover resolved itself from the darkness, and under it Zared could see the still form of Leagh.
He moved closer – how could he best wake her without startling her into a loud cry? It would hardly do his cause good to have Caelum – or Askam, gods forbid! – burst in on them.
But even as he hesitatingly reached down a hand, Leagh sighed, turned her head, and opened her eyes.
“Am I dreaming,” she whispered, “or do you truly stand before me, Zared?”
“Oh, gods, Leagh!” he cried softly, brokenly, and he sat down on the bed and gathered her into his arms.
Outside, Zenith tensed, but she gradually relaxed, tears coming to her eyes. What would it be like to love like this? To be loved this deeply? She withdrew her presence a little from the chamber to give them more privacy, although she still maintained watch. They could spend the hours before dawn together, but then she would interrupt, and take Zared from Leagh.
The tears trickled down her cheeks. This was likely to be the only time they would ever have together.
Then, without warning, a sense of doom so profound it left her gasping washed over her.
Zenith groaned and bent almost double, clutching at the wall for support.
What was wrong, what had disturbed her this deeply? Zared and Leagh? No, they were close, but not too close. It was something else. Something … something so fundamentally wrong that the very Star Dance seemed to waver before it beat on as strong as ever.
The sensation of imminent doom faded almost as soon as it had washed through her, but it left Zenith with a feeling of such fright that she spent the rest of that night crouched outside Leagh’s door, wrapped in enchantment so thick that a spear would have bounced off an arm’s distance away before it could have touched her.
Zared, Leagh and Zenith were not the only wakeful ones that night. Caelum also paced the corridors, returning to his own chambers from whatever nocturnal mission he’d set himself to.
He also felt the sudden alteration in the Star Dance, but Caelum was of infinitely more power than Zenith, and he knew that it had been caused by the sudden intrusion of a powerful Enchanter somewhere in Tencendor.
There was someone different about. Who?
Who?
Caelum stood in the centre of his chamber, seeking, probing through Tencendor with his power … feeling out whoever it was who had so suddenly disturbed the Star Dance.
He twitched, and an expression of utter horror came over his face.
“WolfStar!” he whispered, then he tipped back his head and screamed. “WolfStar!”
And then he vanished.
In unconscious imitation of the ancient madness of WolfStar SunSoar, the Ferryman stood wrapped in his ruby cloak at the lip of the Star Gate. Even though the Icarii had reclaimed the Star Gate, few visited there except on ceremonial occasions, and Orr was alone in the circular chamber.
Blue light chased about the dome, and the sound of the universe roared through, demanding, seductive, entreating.
Orr ignored all of it. “There … again!” he whispered, and trembled. “Again!”
There was a sound beyond that of the Star Dance, beyond that of the interstellar winds of the universe. A whisper, but a whisper of many voices.
Maddened voices. Demanding voices.
Orr shivered. What was it, this ravening pack of voices? Who were they? Why did they cry so?
What did they want?
“And again,” he said, his hands tightening about his cloak. “Who are they to disturb the peace of the stars so?”
“They claim to be my judgment, friend Ferryman.”
Orr jumped so badly he almost fell into the Star Gate. A hand closed about his arm, steadying him.
Orr turned to see who had surprised him, then squealed in terror and stumbled back several paces. “WolfStar!”
Was anyone safe about the Star Gate with this renegade present?
“Peace, Ferryman,” WolfStar said. “I am not the same madman who cast so many children to their deaths.”
Orr
