Battleaxe (23 page)

H
ours before dawn the next morning Yr raised herself from Timozel’s side and looked about. Jack stood waiting silently a few paces away, staff in hand. Their glowing eyes met, but neither said a word. Yr looked down at Timozel, deep in sleep, his youthful face boyish in repose. She carefully spread her hand across his face, fingertips at his temples, thumb on the point of his chin. Blue light pulsed lightly from her fingertips. She glanced at Jack and he stepped forward and gently laid the knob of his staff on the back of Yr’s hand where it rested on Timozel’s face. The blue light around her fingertips intensified twenty-fold, and both squinted a little in the sudden brightness. Jack’s lips moved silently, while Yr’s face was a mask of concentration.

Faraday watched from a safe distance. Poor Timozel, caught up in an adventure that he had not wanted. Unwillingly subjected to an enchantment about which he knew nothing and that he would loathe and fear if he did know. She fidgeted, feeling nervous about the day ahead. Why had the Prophecy sprung to life in hers and Axis’ lifetimes?

Precisely because it is your lifetimes,
a small voice echoed in her head, and she noticed Jack looking at her. Had he invaded her head as well?

Timozel’s breathing slowed gradually until he breathed only once every minute. Yr scrambled to her feet and slipped her rough worsted dress over her head, cinching it tight about her waist at the same time as she wriggled her feet into her boots. She twisted her hair into a knot behind her neck.

“What have you done to him?” Faraday asked quietly as she stepped up beside the Sentinel.

Yr glanced at her. Faraday seemed drawn and pale in the faint light emitted by the coals left from last night’s fire. “What I have done, with the help of Jack’s staff, is to move him slightly outside the normal flow of time. What would normally be another three hours of sleep will now extend into three days, if not more. He will wake with no sense of having slept that long.”

“Will he be all right? What if it rains…snows? How will he keep warm?”

Yr stroked Faraday’s cheek soothingly. “Hush now, sweet child. We are well within the protection of Fernbrake Lake at this point. The Lake knows we are coming, and the Lake knows that Timozel, the pigs and even the mule require the same protection as ourselves. She will keep him in Her care until we return. He will stay warm and safe, and the mule and the pigs will remain close by. The worst of the weather will pass well overhead.”

“She?” What did Yr mean, talking of the lake as if it were alive?

Jack stepped up behind them, handing them their cloaks. Protected or not, the air was still close to freezing. “Come. The Mother awaits.”

Faraday shifted her eyes nervously between them. “The Mother?”

Jack smiled gently, and his eyes were soft. “Faraday, do you remember how scared you felt before you walked into the unknown Chamber of the Star Gate?” Faraday nodded. “And do you remember how you felt when you gazed into the Star Gate itself?” Faraday nodded again, more strongly this time. She would never let that sight fade from her mind. “Faraday. The Star Gate is one of the most magical and powerful places in this land of Tencendor. Fernbrake Lake, or the Mother, as it is anciently known, is another.
You are caught up in an adventure that you did not ask for and did not want. But, think on this sweet lady, you are witnessing wonders that none of your race have seen for close on a thousand years.”

Faraday pondered Jack’s words, and the stress lines on her face slowly began to ease. She had seen the Star Gate, and even if she never saw it again it was enough simply to know that it was there, that it existed.

“Yr. I know so little. Will you tell me of Tencendor as we walk?”

Yr took Faraday’s hand between both of her own. “Gladly, sweet child. Gladly. Today we will see a part of Tencendor that still survives, that still lives much as it did before…before the Seneschal started to murder this beautiful land.”

“Come,” Jack’s voice was brisk. “We will have to climb most of the day.”

The two women shouldered the smallish packs that Jack had prepared for them. Faraday paused a moment by Timozel’s side, then touched his cheek gently. “Rest well,” she said softly. “I will return safely.”

Jack finished checking the camp, hefted his own larger pack onto his back, and gestured impatiently. Yr led Faraday towards the end of Pig Gully where a trail wound up into the mountains. When they turned their backs Jack leaned swiftly down to Timozel’s side and placed his hand over the man’s face. Faint green light glowed at his fingertips. After a moment Jack lifted his hand off, puzzlement written over his face. He wiped his hand through his blond hair, considering. Veremund had told him clearly what he had felt when he had tested Timozel in the Silent Woman Keep. A good heart, but shadowed with unhappiness. The promise of troubled choices in his future. Yes, all that was there, but there was also a taint of something strange that Jack could not identify and that made him very uncomfortable, very uncomfortable indeed. He stood up and hurried after Yr and Faraday. Again he wished he had led Faraday and Timozel into some other Barrow than the one he had.
Any
Barrow but that of the ninth Enchanter-Talon. But Jack could not deny the Prophecy, and none of the marked could ever evade the Prophet’s hand.

They climbed solidly until the sun crested the mountain ridges that rose far above them. No-one had any breath left for talking once they started to bend their backs into the steep mountain path out of Pig Gully. For a long time the only sound was the crunch of their booted feet on the gravel of the path. Once the sun was well clear of the mountain ridges Jack called a halt. Yr and Faraday sank gratefully against the rocky mountain wall of the path, legs outstretched. Faraday wondered vaguely if all of Tencendor’s wonders existed at the very top of the world or at the very bottom.

“All others have been destroyed,” Yr gasped by her side. “Only those at the top and the bottom of the world have survived.”

Faraday closed her eyes in weariness. She would never get used to the Sentinel’s unnerving habit of reading thoughts. Yr leaned over and patted her hand. “We do not do it all the time, dear child,” she muttered. “We try to be polite.”

“Oh, Yr! What thoughts did you catch as you wandered the corridors of Priam’s palace?”

Yr’s grin faded a little. “Not always pretty ones, dear one, not always pretty ones.” She thought about some of the more irksome and surprising knowledge she had picked up at the palace, not to mention the troubling secrets she had gathered on her regular forays to the Tower of the Seneschal. Thank the Mother that Axis was away from the Tower for the time being. Perhaps, just perhaps, his journey north would open his eyes to some of the lies that enveloped him. The sooner he was freed from their falsehoods the sooner he would find his own truths.

Jack sat a little further up the track watching them. He was immensely relieved that they had been able to leave Timozel behind. When he and the other Sentinels had discussed spiriting Faraday away to Borneheld, they had wanted the opportunity to train her as much as possible before events overtook them. But he and Yr had been severely restrained by Timozel’s presence, and Faraday still had to step firmly onto the path that the Prophecy had chosen for her.

He passed out thick slices of ham, crunchy currant biscuits, and tawny, dried summer apples. If Timozel had been an unplanned nuisance, then Goodwife Renkin had served her purpose far better than he could have hoped. “Yr,” he muttered around a mouthful of ham, “perhaps you can tell Faraday of the Sacred Lakes while we breakfast.”

“Sacred Lakes?” Faraday’s eyes were round. “Is the Fernbrake, the Mother, one of them?”

“Yes, sweet child.” Yr nibbled delicately at the core of an apple. “There are four of them. The Fernbrake, or Mother, whom we will visit today. Can you think of any others?”

Faraday licked her fingers; the ham was exceedingly delicious. She wondered if it was smoked over peat or wood fire. Perhaps the Goodpeople Renkin smoked it over dried pig manure. She thought about that very hard for a moment, concentrating on forming a clear image in her mind.

Jack gagged and spat out the last mouthful of ham that he had been chewing on. Faraday let the image go and laughed delightedly, clapping her hands like a small child. The two Sentinels looked wryly at each other. Caught.
“Not
polite,” Faraday laughed.

Yr repressed a smile. “The Lakes, dear child. Can you think of any others?”

Faraday concentrated. “Why, the Cauldron Lake. In the Silent Woman Woods. That must be one of them. Timozel told me how strange it was.”

Yr inclined her head in agreement. “But there is one you know even better.”

Faraday blinked her eyes in confusion. “What other strange lakes are there, Yr? There are no other large lakes in Achar except…oh! Surely not!”

“Ah,” Jack winked at Yr. “I think she has it.”

“Not Grail Lake,” Faraday breathed.

“Precisely, my sweet. But Grail Lake has buried its enchantment deep over the past several hundred years. Of all the Sacred Lakes, it has been the most exposed to the works of man. And of the Seneschal.”

“And the fourth?” Faraday asked.

“It lies far to the north.” Jack smiled to himself. “But I think it is the most beautiful of all.”

Faraday turned back to Yr. “Why are they sacred, Yr?”

Yr started to crunch her way through a currant biscuit, holding a hand beneath her chin to catch the crumbs. “Each has its own purpose, Faraday,” she muttered ambiguously, “and its own secrets. Today, or perhaps tomorrow, you may see why it is that the Avar people particularly revere the Mother.”

Faraday remembered what Veremund had told her about the Avar people. The people of the forest. He had also called the Icarii the people of the Wing, and now Jack had told her that, incredibly, the Icarii were actually winged people. “Yr, if the Icarii are referred to as the people of the Wing, and if they do indeed have wings, then what do the Avar look like if they are the people of the forest? Do they have leaves instead of hair?”

Now it was Jack and Yr’s turn to laugh. “No, dear one,” Jack said obscurely as he rose to his feet. “Hardly that. Come, it is time we were moving.”

Just as they were beginning to climb again Faraday remembered what else Veremund had mentioned about the Avar, that perhaps they could speak to the trees. She looked about the slopes of the Bracken Ranges. The mountains were so named because of the dense growth of ferns and waist-high bracken that covered most of their lower slopes. But now Faraday wondered if the interior of the Ranges surrounding Fernbrake Lake supported plant life a little larger than bracken. Some of Faraday’s nervousness returned. Her entire life up to this point had revolved about fear of the forest and the forbidden creatures it contained; despite her wonder at the Star Gate, it was not easy to let go of such ingrained fear.

Timozel, caught in his enchantment, dreamed. Again he walked down a long ice tunnel, enslaved, terrified, and again he approached the massive wooden door. Again a dreadful voice boomed from the other side of the door to enter and Timozel’s treacherous hand closed firmly upon the latch, which twisted
open. “No!” he screamed, but the latch continued to move and Timozel heard a click as the door lock gave way. Just as the door began to inch open his mind let go and Timozel slipped back into sleep.

After many hours of climbing, Jack, Yr and Faraday topped a ridge and Fernbrake Lake lay before them, a vast circular body of emerald water almost completely filling the collapsed peak of a mountain. Great ferns and bracken, as tall as a man, surrounded much of the lake, but around one end there stood a stand of massive trees towering into the dark and cloudy sky. Jack led them down the side of the ridge towards a smooth, well-grassed area between the trees and the water’s edge.

Faraday was subdued as they scrambled down the side of the ridge onto a steep path hemmed in by the tall tree ferns. Fernbrake Lake, although beautiful, was not as wonderful as Jack and Yr had promised. It was certainly nothing like the Star Gate. And Faraday was depressed at the sight of the trees. For her they recalled the dreadful images of her vision, and she did not think she could bear it if they wanted to sing her another like it. Yr turned and smiled reassuringly at her. Yr had said that she would learn to love the trees almost more than life itself, but Faraday thought it would take all her efforts simply to learn to accept them. Even the myriad birds that called from the bracken did not calm her.

It took them close to an hour to climb down the steep path and work their way around the lake towards the clear area in front of the trees. The clearing stretched some fifty paces between the tree line and the water’s edge, extending in an almost perfect crescent around the eastern rim of the lake.

“This is a very sacred spot for the Avar people, dear one,” Yr whispered to Faraday. “You see, the Avar revere the—”

“I do not think your explanations will be necessary, gentle one,” Jack said, his voice very still, gazing towards the tree line. “I think that for once our luck has turned for the better. See, the Mother has an Avar Bane in attendance.”

Both Yr and Faraday turned to look at the spot in the tree line
where Jack’s eyes were riveted. “A Bane,” Yr whispered, awed. Faraday stared at the trees, but for a long moment she could see nothing. Then, just as her eyes adjusted to the shadows between the trees, a man, carrying a small child, walked into the cold daylight of the clearing.

Timozel was trapped again in his dream, trapped before the slowly opening door. He finally managed to force his hand from the door latch lest the opening door pull him precipitously into the room beyond. The person—the creature—who was opening the door was standing behind it, and all Timozel could see was his shadow stretching across the ice floor of the room beyond. Even the ill-defined shape of the shadow was ghastly enough for Timozel to finally wrench his mind from the power that held him and escape once more.