Crusader (20 page)

Isfrael was still caught in his vision.
The Mother walked by his side, not a god at all but a companion. She was asking his advice, and listening gratefully to his answers.

Qeteb saw a glimpse of what Isfrael wanted, perhaps more than anything else, and the vision altered slightly for the Mage-King…

And Shra walked by his other side. She had transformed as did all female Banes when they died, and now she awaited him in the Sacred Groves. She waited for him…

Isfrael lifted his hand and took a bite of the apple—

The Demons screamed with silent triumph.

—and realisation that the Demons
did
speak the truth flooded his being. They would help him to the Sacred Groves, and there they would leave him in peace, and all for the price
of a piece of information that they would surely have figured out sooner or later for themselves.

Peace, power, and all for the tiniest of prices. Isfrael could hardly comprehend his good fortune.

Qeteb grinned, malevolent with exultation behind his mask. The apple always did the trick.

“Let me tell you about the Niah-woman,” Isfrael whispered. “She is a treasure you can hardly comprehend. It all has to do with Acharites and death…”

And Isfrael talked, the words tumbling out and falling over themselves. All Acharites carried the seeds of Enemy magic within themselves. Only those who’d come back through death could use it. Niah, if only she could speak and think, was a weapon that could breach the walls of Sanctuary, and perhaps could be thrown at the StarSon himself.

“Was that worth the Sacred Groves?” Isfrael finished. “Was it?”

“Oh, assuredly,” Qeteb said, and his voice quivered with triumph.

The StarSon was his!

“I can’t get to the Groves by myself,” Isfrael said, desperate now that the Demons had their information to receive his payment. “I need your power to breach the defences that the Mother has placed around them.”

“But how can we—” Qeteb started.

“All I need is
power,”
Isfrael said. “Surely you must be more powerful than the Mother? Just create that small rent for me, and I will pass through, and then I can seal the fissure from the other side.”

Qeteb glanced at his companions, and they all remembered the strange bowl that one of the Hawkchilds had found. It was of great magic, and StarLaughter—and curses that she had not yet been found!—had said it was of Avar magic.

Without a spoken word, but with mutual agreement, Qeteb lifted a hand and gestured at the sky.

A round-shaped object spun down, and Qeteb caught it in a hand.

“Tell me about this bowl,” he said to Isfrael.

Isfrael’s face brightened with excitement. “That is my mother’s bowl!”

“And its significance is…” Qeteb said patiently.

“It does many things, but one of its main purposes was to allow my mother to travel to and from the Sacred Groves.”

“Do you know how to use it?”

Isfrael stared at the bowl, then raised his eyes to Qeteb’s mask. “Yes. I can use it, but I will need your power added to the power of the bowl so that I can propel myself into the Groves. And…one more thing.”

I do hope your flesh is going to be sweet enough for all the trouble you are causing me, Qeteb thought, but he answered pleasantly enough. “Yes?”

“I take the bowl with me,” Isfrael said.
And then I shall be safe for all time!
he thought.

“But of course,” Qeteb said. “I would not dream of keeping it.”

And even his visor seemed to smile reassuringly.

Isfrael relaxed with complete relief. “My people are in Sanctuary—” he began.

“No,” said Qeteb. “No. They were not part of your original bargain.”

“But—”

“No!”

Isfrael subsided. The Avar
had
abandoned him after all. And even then he had tried to save them. He’d done his best. He had. He really had. Now he should concentrate on saving what was left.

“Very well,” he said, and reached out for the bowl.

Isfrael may not have been told of the exact way in which Faraday had used the bowl to reach the Sacred Groves, but he was Mage-King of the Avar, instructed and expert in all of their secret arts. He knew the bowl for what it was: a
conduit, a means of entering the Groves either when all other means were closed, or, as in Faraday’s case, by a person who normally would not have the power or the knowledge to access the secret paths.

The Mother had forgotten the bowl when She’d closed the paths. She’d forgotten that She’d left the back door open.

And here it was, Isfrael thought, in the hands of the Demons. The silly Bitch, She needed him there to guide Her. Why, if he hadn’t come along, the Demons would have accessed the Groves for themselves! The Mother was fortunate indeed that he was here to save Her and all who still dwelt within the Groves.

Isfrael placed the bowl on the ground. “I need water.”

Instantly Sheol was at his side, solicitously offering him a pewter pitcher filled with clear, sweet water.

She poured it into the bowl, and as it swirled about, the water changed to a deep emerald colour.

Isfrael’s chest constricted with excitement, and he had to fight to calm himself. He opened his right hand, and hesitated.

Qeteb, deep inside Isfrael’s unwitting mind, instantly leaned out his own hand, one finger extended.

Isfrael stared at the mailed hand, then took a grasp of it—

It was deathly cold, as if it had been entombed for centuries within one of the great bergs that drifted in the Iskruel Ocean.

—and used one of the sharpened overlapping joints above a knuckle to slice a small way into his thumb.

Blood welled, and Isfrael let Qeteb’s hand go.

He had not noticed the intensity of its cold, or the intensity of the coldness that now coiled deep inside his mind.

A trace, that the Demons could use later, at their leisure.

Isfrael stood over the bowl murmuring prayers and invocations to the Mother, then he let a single drop of blood fall into the bowl of water.

Blood swarmed over the entire surface of the emerald water.

Isfrael bent down, picked up the bowl, then straightened.
He closed his eyes, tilted his head back slightly, and prepared to enter the groves.

“Do it now!” he whispered. “Use your power to propel me
now!”

And the Demons did. They sniggered and they capered, they dribbled and they scampered, and they concentrated their entire power on the man and the bowl before them.

After all, they had promised.

Isfrael screamed, and then emerald light consumed him. He found himself caught up in a whirlpool of the light, and he almost panicked, until he realised that he was being propelled towards the Sacred Groves with such power that he was being forced through the barriers the Mother had erected.

It hurt. Dreadfully.

But he could feel himself being forced through.

Isfrael clung even tighter to the bowl, concentrating as hard as he could on the image of the Groves…and suddenly he could feel the firmness of a forest floor beneath his feet, and he could smell the pungent odour of the trees, and then the emerald light resolved into the form of a thousand trees.

He was in the Sacred Groves. Finally.

Isfrael stood triumphantly. He had done it! He was safe! He turned slightly, and he saw a silver-backed Horned One walking towards him. The Horned One’s stag head was trembling, and his liquid dark eyes were filled with anger.

Anger…and panic.

“What have you done!” the silver-pelt hissed. “What have you done?”

And he knocked the bowl from Isfrael’s hands. “What is this abomination you introduce into the Groves?”

Qeteb stood in the centre of the apple grove, Faraday’s bowl in his hands.

“I do hope he liked the imitation I sent with him,” he said, and all the Demons howled with laughter.

W
hat DragonStar found in Sanctuary appalled him. Leagh, lying bruised and tearful on her bed, with Zenith at her side, Zared at her other, and StarDrifter, Axis, Azhure, Goldman and Gwendylyr all hovering about, whispering uselessly.

Faraday stood to one side by a window, calm but clearly upset. Katie clung to her skirts, looking resigned.

“What happened?” DragonStar said, striding into the chamber. He’d known the instant that he’d stepped back into Sanctuary that something was wrong. The air smelt vaguely tainted, as if corrupted with the tang of a rotten apple that someone had thrown to one side and then forgotten.

Leagh half raised herself, ignoring Zenith’s and Zared’s protests. “Isfrael forced me to give him the doorway that you gave to each of us,” she said. “And he stepped through it into Spiredore.”

DragonStar sat down by Leagh’s side as Zenith stood to give him room. She stepped back and stood with StarDrifter.

“He hurt you,” DragonStar said.

Leagh attempted to smile, but it did not work very well. “I will be well enough,” she said. “A few bruises, both to body and soul.”

DragonStar glanced at Faraday, exchanging unspoken concerns with her, then he gently rested a hand on Leagh’s abdomen.

“Faraday said the child was well,” Leagh said.

“Aye,” DragonStar said, and smiled for Leagh. “The child is well.” Physically, yes, but spiritually frightened and lost and feeling so insecure that DragonStar wondered if it might try to fight its way free of the womb. If born now it would never survive.

“I saved the doorway,” Leagh said, and her voice cracked with tears. “I did not allow him to take—”

“Hush,” DragonStar said, and lifted his hand to caress Leagh’s cheek. “Hush. There is no guilt or blame in what happened. None that
you
should bear. Faraday,” he lifted his eyes, “where do you think Isfrael went? What do you think was his purpose? Helpful…or foul?”

Faraday took a deep breath, and her shoulders trembled. Katie clung a little closer. “I cannot think but that it was foul.”

DragonStar waited, his gaze steady.

“He hates me,” Faraday continued, her voice a little steadier, “for many reasons, but most recently and perhaps most powerfully for disinheriting him, as he understands it, from his position as Mage-King. I think that he may have had some plan to regain that power and position.”

“How?”

Faraday shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know. We have all discussed this, and none of us know.”

“Where could he have gone from Spiredore?”

Axis answered, stepping forward and giving Leagh a reassuring smile before he looked at his son. “We all thought the Sacred Groves, but Faraday has told us that the Mother closed off the paths to the Groves before Qeteb was finally resurrected.”

“And Spiredore would not have been strong enough to breach Her barriers,” Azhure put in. She linked an arm through Axis’, and they shared a small smile.

Always the love for themselves, DragonStar thought, and not so much for others. But the thought caused him no resentment, and he wondered if he and Faraday would ever
have the time and the peace to indulge in the same luxury of love. How much time had they shared over the past days since he’d arrived in Sanctuary? A few hours snatched here and there, and no more.

“Is there anywhere he could have gone where he could have avoided the Demons?” DragonStar asked. His frustration was clearly evident in his voice.

Silence.

“We cannot think of anywhere,” Faraday said eventually. Her voice was breaking.

He went
to
the Demons!
The same thought exploded through all their minds.

“Gods!” DragonStar whispered, and rubbed his forehead. “Why? Why?”

“Our son,” Axis said, and looked at Faraday, “our son has betrayed us.”

DragonStar had to struggle to repress bitter laughter.
You always have to have a son to betray you, don’t you, Axis?
But he managed to banish the thought almost as soon as it surfaced.

Damn it! He had to think!
Why would Isfrael have gone to the Demons?

“And how did he think he was going to survive?” he muttered.

Again, silence, and again it was Faraday who eventually broke it. “He would have gone to bargain with them,” she said, “but with what, and for what, I do not know.”

DragonStar lifted his eyes to hers. “We are going to have to find out,” he said.

This was difficult, and extremely dangerous, but DragonStar had no choice. He had to know what Isfrael was about to do.

Or what he had already done. Stars alone knew if they were going to be able to stop Isfrael, or if the situation had gone too far to remedy the damage.

They were in a small room: DragonStar, Faraday, Gwendylyr and Goldman, and Axis and Azhure. Axis and
Azhure could not help with power, but DragonStar somehow wanted them there, not only for the knowledge and experience they shared, but also because their presence comforted him.

And DragonStar was gladdened beyond measure by that sense of comfort.

They all sat in a small circle of chairs, close-touching, save for Faraday who knelt within the circle before DragonStar, her hands on his lap.

“Faraday,” DragonStar said, “of all of us present, you are the one with the closest bond to Isfrael.”

“And that not very close at all,” she said, sadly.

DragonStar smiled for her, letting love and tenderness wash over his face. “You held him within your body for many months, and you bear a mother’s love for him. You
have
a bond, and you also have power.”

She nodded. DragonStar had explained what they must do. Follow Isfrael through the door with their minds and their power. Follow the memory of where he went, and what he did.

See.

The entire procedure was horrendously risky. They were all exposing themselves to attack by the Demons, for their mind power would provide a direct link back to their bodies which remained in this room.

Faraday looked at DragonStar, and, in turn, DragonStar looked at Axis.

Axis gave a slight nod, his face stiff with tension and fear.
If the Demons follow our minds back into Sanctuary,
DragonStar had told him,
and seize control of our bodies, then kill us. It will be your—and Sanctuary’s—only hope.