"Then build me wings to fly," EverHeart said, bitterness twisting her voice, "that I may escape these useless legs and this prison-bed."

CrimsonStar looked at her. "My lovely, I cannot.. ."

* 350 *

"Then kill me."

CrimsonStar crept away, not wishing EverHeart to see the depth of his distress. Knowing she knew it anyway.

He climbed to the crag from which EverHeart had fallen so many months before. He had no intention of throwing himself from the peak, but some instinct told him that he might find comfort at the same point where he and she had lost so much of their lives. He sat down in a sheltered crevice, and watched the stars filter their way across the night sky.

Tears ran down his face. EverHeart had given him an impossible request. . . and if he didn't help her die now, then what agony of wasting would she go through over the next few months until she died of unaided causes?

"You should not weep so at this alt.i.tude," a soft voice said, "for your tears will freeze to your face and leave your cheeks marred with black ice."

CrimsonStar jerked his head up.

A sparrow hopped into the crevice, its feathers ruffled out against the cold.

CrimsonStar was so stunned he could not speak.

"I have been disappointed in you, my son," the sparrow continued, and hopped onto CrimsonStar's knee to better look the Icarii man in the eye.

"Disappointed?" CrimsonStar managed, but he straightened his shoulders and brushed the tears from his eyes. Who was this sparrow to so chastise him?

"I am your father, CrimsonStar."

"No ... no ... my father is FellowStar . . . alive and well..."

The sparrow tipped his head to one side, his eyes angry yet sadly tolerant of his wayward child. "Do you not understand, CrimsonStar? I am the father of the Icarii race."

CrimsonStar could do nothing but stare at the sparrow.

"I lay with the Enchantress, and she waxed great with our child. Her third and last son for her life ... and my fourth son that spring. It was a good spring for me that year."

351.

"I... I did not know . . ."

"Few knew who the Enchantress took to her bed, child. The fathers of her elder sons are unknown to me.

And I... I should not have told you of my role in your generation, save that I could not bear your sadness and that of EverHeart's. Still," the sparrow sighed, "I had no choice, for you have proved such a disappointment, and all fathers reserve their right to chastise and redirect their children."

CrimsonStar slowly shook his head from side to side, almost unable to comprehend that this sparrow (a sparrow!) was the father of the proud Icarii race.

"Listen to me, CrimsonStar. I shall tell you of a great joy and then I shall curse you, because you must pay for the privilege of hearing my advice -"

"No ... I have been cursed enough."

"You have no choice, my son. Now .. . watch."

And the sparrow fluttered his wings, and rose a handspan above CrimsonStar's knee before settling gently down again.

"Why have you no wings, CrimsonStar?"

"Wings ..."

"Wings, CrimsonStar. You are my son, and yet you refuse to wear your heritage."

"I...".

"Do you not sing the Flight Song to your children as they lay nesting in their sh.e.l.ls?"

"Flight Song .. .?"

The sparrow spat in disgust. "Listen ..." And he trilled a simple song, paused, then trilled it again. "Repeat it."

His surprise giving way to a small tingle of excitement, CrimsonStar repeated the tune, stumbling over one or two of the phrases, but correcting himself instantly.

The sparrow laughed. "You are my son, CrimsonStar. Now go home and lay beside EverHeart and sing her the Song. Run your hands down her back, rub, probe, encourage, and soon she shall have movement again.

Soon she will soar free from her prison-bed and let the sky *3S2.

ring with her laughter. Teach her the Song, and let her minister to you as well. And when she swells with your child, then place your hands on her belly and sing to the child what I have taught you. It is my gift to my children, CrimsonStar."

"Thank -"

"Do not thank me, CrimsonStar. Not until after the pain has faded, for you are both late in age to spread your wings. Besides, for the knowledge I have imparted and the gift I have given I must curse you."

CrimsonStar waited, sure the curse would match the gift.

"Oh, it will, it will, CrimsonStar. Listen to me now. You and EverHeart will be the first among the Icarii to spread your wings and fly into the heavens. But for this there is a price. I name your family SunSoar, a regal name, for your feathered backs must bear the burden of the sins of the Icarii. Wait . . . there is more.

As you and EverHeart can consider no other love save that you bear for the other, so no SunSoar will love beyond the SunSoar blood. Never will you and yours find happiness save in each other's arms. Do you understand?"

CrimsonStar nodded soberly, considering the implications.

"Then go down to your wife, CrimsonStar. And then to your people . .. and tell them the heavens wait."

The fire had died down, and Drago's face was lost in shadow.

"StarDrifter told me that," he repeated, "and he also told me that somehow the story must have been corrupted by the Seneschal, for how could the proud Icarii be born of a sparrow?"

Faraday managed a small smile. Poor StarDrifter. No doubt he preferred to think that the Icarii race was fathered by one of the stars themselves, falling down the ladder of the Star Dance to impregnate the Enchantress.

"It is no myth, but truth," said Urbeth quietly, her eyes fixed on some distant point in the roof beams. "For I am she 353.

who lay with the sparrow, and I am she who mothered the three races."

As Drago and Faraday stared at her, Faraday motionless with shock and Drago silent with understanding, Urbeth - the Enchantress - rolled over on her belly and bared her teeth at them.

"Noah sent you to me to learn, Drago, and there is a lesson in what you have just related. Shall we speak of it?"

3S4.

38.Zenith sat at the table and tried not to listen to the conversation. StarDrifter and EvenSong were chatting happily about their long-gone life in Talon Spike. All Zenith could think of was that EvenSong was her aunt ... and how could she sleep with her aunt's father? Zenith suppressed a grimace. She was becoming obsessed with guilt, and yet all she and StarDrifter had ever done was share a kiss or two!

Zenith looked at the table, trying to find something else to think about. The table held the most splendid platter-ware - the richest crimson-gilded Corolean manufacture - but it sat horribly bare. That noon they'd lunched on dried biscuits and a single apple apiece.

The only thing they had in abundance was wine. The cellars of the palace had always been well-stocked, and whether it was the accessibility or the peace of mind it gave Zenith did not know, but over the past few weeks she had begun to avail herself of it a little too freely.

She had not been able to resolve anything regarding StarDrifter. He remained warm, loving and patient.

She wanted desperately to please him, to thank him for his belief in her, and had come to the conclusion that if she was unable to bring herself to sleep with him, it was nothing but her fault. There was no reason to feel such repulsion .. . was there?

* 355 .

Perhaps RiverStar had been right to taunt her. Maybe she should have taken lovers well before this. Maybe she was nothing but a prim b.i.t.c.h with a hall as cold as any in this complex. Why was she such a prudel She crumpled a napkin in one hand, and felt like screaming. All Zenith wanted to do was escape . . . escape from this chill-chambered prison, and from her own confusion and guilt. In the next instant, escape was handed her.

StarFever bustled in the door, and behind him came WingRidge CurlClaw, Captain of the Lake Guard, with SpikeFeather TrueSong at his side.

StarDrifter gaped at them an instant before he remembered that Drago had sent them off to find Sanctuary.

He stood and took a step in their direction. "Have you ...?"

"Well," WingRidge said, one eyebrow raised in amus.e.m.e.nt, "SpikeFeather thinks he knows where it is."

"But we need your help," SpikeFeather said.

Both birdmen remembered their manners as they caught sight of FreeFall, and they bowed low, sweeping their wings behind them.

"StarDrifter has spoken of this Sanctuary," FreeFall said as he rose and walked slowly over to WingRidge.

"He has also said that you trust implicitly in Drago. Is this correct?"

"Talon FreeFall," WingRidge said, holding the birdman's eyes. "If I say that I believe in Drago, then what I mean is that the Lake Guard believes Drago .. . and trusts Drago." FreeFall stilled, his back very straight. He knew as well as any other that the Lake Guard dedicated their lives in service to StarSon. "And so now you aid Drago," he asked. "You do as he asks?"

"I can do nothing else," WingRidge said. "The Guard can do nothing else."

FreeFall rocked slightly on his feet as the implications of what WingRidge said sank in.

The Lake Guard acknowledged Drago as StarSon.

356.

He looked at EvenSong, their love and many years of closeness allowing them to know what the other was thinking, even if they had never had the benefit of enchantments with which to share thoughts.

FreeFall breathed deeply, trying to accept it, but finding it hard. Why had no-one told him before now?

"The Icarii starve in this cold-hailed h.e.l.l," he said to WingRidge, and walked back to his place at the table.

For the moment he did not want to think about accepting Drago as StarSon. "And the Avar can hardly feed themselves, let alone us. Every day we are inundated with more refugees from the plains to the west.

StarDrifter could tell me little about this Sanctuary . . . can you add to that meagreness?"

FreeFall sat and indicated two stools, and the two birdmen took them, tucking their wings neatly against their backs. Briefly SpikeFeather spoke about what they knew of Sanctuary. It was not much.

"Drago knew nothing of it himself," SpikeFeather said, "save that it exists and that it is within the Underworld. He tasked WingRidge and myself with the burden of looking for it."

"And of course," WingRidge said, managing to combine both sarcasm and affection into his tone, "despite all SpikeFeather's knowledge gained from the Ferryman, he could not cast a gleam of light upon this mysterious Sanctuary."

"Nevertheless," SpikeFeather said firmly, throwing the captain of the Lake Guard an irritated glance, "I now know where it must be."

He told his four listeners of his and WingRidge's hunt through the ancient maps of Sigholt.

"And you found evidence of Sanctuary?" Zenith said. For the first time in weeks she felt a surge of optimism ... and sheer relief in being given something else to think of other than her problematical relationship with StarDrifter.

"Not quite," WingRidge said, his eyes firmly on SpikeFeather.

357^.

"What we found," SpikeFeather continued, "was an ancient map of Tencendor that showed the Sacred Lakes and their accompanying Keeps. All four Lakes, and all four Keeps."

"But..." EvenSong said and shared a glance with her husband, father and Zenith.

"Quite," SpikeFeather said with evident satisfaction. "Now there are only three Lakes with Keeps, or Towers. Where is Fernbrake Lake's Keep? It was there on the ancient map, but now? Gone."

He grinned and waved his hands about as if his discovery had magically solved Tencendor's every last problem.

"My friend does tend to be slightly over-enthusiastic on what can only be sheer supposition," WingRidge said.

"But surely he has a point, otherwise you would not be here with him," Zenith said.

"Zenith is right," StarDrifter said slowly. "Tell me, have you searched for this lost Keep in the waterways?"

SpikeFeather nodded. "Of course - but we found nothing. Besides ... would not the Charonites have found something before now if it were in easy view?"

WingRidge thought about observing that the Charonites had managed to miss the Maze Gate, as well as any evidence of Noah's occasional ramblings through the waterways between the craft, but decided not to spoil SpikeFeather's moment of excitement.

"There is much in the Underworld that lay hidden in deep enchantment even from Charonite eyes,"

SpikeFeather went on. "I think that the entrance to Sanctuary must be in the Overworld somewhere - for the peoples of Tencendor to have easy access to it - and leads down to a completely hidden region of the waterways. I think the door to Sanctuary must be Fernbrake's Keep - what else can it be - and we must only find it, and then -"

"And then I suppose every one of Tencendor's problems will be instantly at an end," FreeFall said, with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

*358 *.

"At the least," StarDrifter said, "you may find shelter and food for the Icarii, FreeFall, and room enough also for the Acharites and Avar, should the forests ever fail."