He laughed. "And had a beetle crawled about in the right pattern then the door would have opened for it, as well."

But no-one, thought Zenith, could have used that power or executed that dance with the grace and beauty of StarDrifter. Still excited, StarDrifter slid his arm around her shoulders, and Zenith did not object.

The patchy-bald rat scrabbled its way through the darkness, embracing the foul scents and dampnesses of the sewer.

This was home, and it was where he would eventually launch his revenge on the two-legs who had harried him and * 367 *.

his kind all their lives. He paused, and listened. Ten thousand claws scrabbled behind him, and this was only one sewer. Many other sewers, ten times a thousand sewers, were filled with the sweet sounds of scrabbling, gnawing revenge.

And hunger.

It was not only revenge that drove the patchy-bald rat. His masters wanted those who sheltered in the tenements above . . . but they'd promised him his fun, first.

There, another voice probing his mind. The badger, checking on the rat's progress. The rat quivered in delight at the thought of the slaughter ahead. As he burrowed and tunnelled and probed underground, so the badger and his every-growing crowd of beasts and demented two-legs thronged and probed the sheer walls of Carlon.

The city was surrounded by increasing numbers of Demon-controlled animals. While the guards might lean from the walls and worry about the deranged cattle and sheep and pigs that humped and b.u.mped against the stone, and shudder at the foulness of their human cousins shifting among the beasts, they did not think for a moment of what might be crawling under their feet.

*368.

39.The Mote of Races T: (he Enchantress'}" Faraday said. "But ... but I thought ..." Urbeth waved a paw lazily in the air, admiring the way red shards of firelight glinted from her talons.

"You thought what?" she asked.

"I.. . I thought. .."

"All who know of you," Drago said, "believed you long dead. Or just a myth, or legend."

Urbeth laughed softly, but her humour was edged with cynicism, and neither Drago nor Faraday smiled with her.

"And of that you would know much, would you not?" Urbeth said, addressing Faraday rather than Drago. "For were you not virtually forgotten in but forty years? I have had some fifteen thousand years of forgetfulness, of being consigned to legend."

She almost spat the last word.

Faraday bowed her head in understanding. "And yet I have managed to escape my entrapment in the flesh of a doe," she said, shooting Drago a glance, "while here you still linger in the flesh of a -"

"Bear!" Urbeth cried. "A bear. But you don't understand." She waved a languid paw over her form. "I enjoy this form, and I wear it by choice. Now ..."

Urbeth slapped her paw on the floor in a business-like * 369 .

manner. "Noah sent you north to talk with me, yes, and thus we must talk. First, I would tell you a little of myself, and of my purpose in life, and perhaps that will allow you to realise the significance of the Story of the Sparrow."

The feathered lizard peeked from under the bed covers, then slowly crawled out as the bear continued to speak.

"My name is Urbeth, and has always been, although legend has a.s.signed to me the t.i.tle of Enchantress.

Bah! It is a glib t.i.tle, given how it has been bandied about these past years.

"I was born to loving parents into a world heavy with magic."

"Wait," Drago said, then apologised for his interruption. "I thought that magic only came with -"

"With the Icarii. And their Star Dance." Urbeth grinned. "Learn the first lesson, Drago. This land itself is invested with magic - you should know where it comes from - and it does not need the tinkling accompaniment of the Star Dance to work its wonders.

"Well, to continue. I was entranced by the magic, and captivated by it. It used me to its will, and from my body issued forth three sons, three sons who founded the Icarii, Charonite and Acharite races.

"The sparrow founded the Icarii race, and perhaps it is more than enough time that they should learn his humility."

"And the Charonites?" Drago asked.

Urbeth glanced at the lizard, which had now crept down to the very foot of the bed, his eyes bright upon her.

"Who fathered the Charonites has no bearing on this tale," Urbeth said, and shifted uncomfortably.

"But he was of undoubted magic," Faraday said, "for he fathered a race of magicians."

"Quite so," Urbeth said. "I chose my lovers well. All of them planted enchanted seed."

There was a silence.

"All?" Drago asked softly. "But the Acharites have no magic at -"

370*

Urbeth snarled. "Are you not listening?"

"Urbeth, who fathered the Acharite race?" Faraday asked. Her voice trembled slightly.

Urbeth took her time in answering. When she finally did, her voice was heavy with memory, and perhaps even love. "He was the best lover of all. I would have kept him more company, save that he lived in a place I could not share."

"Noah," Drago said suddenly. "Noah fathered the Acharite race."

Urbeth nodded. "He did."

"And the Acharites are magical?"

In answer, Urbeth looked to Faraday. "Faraday. You carry only Acharite blood. Tell me, are the Acharites magical?"

Faraday opened her mouth to answer in the negative, but then she slowly closed it again, remembering.

Besides herself, there had been others with certain skills, hadn't there?

"Goodwife Renkin," she said. "She was infused with magic, but I thought it a product of her a.s.sociation with the Mother."

"Mostly, yes, but Goodwife Renkin came from a long line of Goodwives who were able to somehow tap into a tiny portion of their ability," Urbeth said. "Women who muttered spells over their newborn children, and their husbands' corn-blistered feet. Women who knew the right paths to keep the sheep from harm. But there is more, Faraday, and you know it."

Faraday stared at her. "Noah gave me power -"

"No!" Urbeth snapped. "He gave you nothing. He merely awoke your latent powers." Her voice softened.

"He is, after all, and in a manner of speaking, your father."

She turned back to Drago. "The TimeKeepers destroyed all the Icarii power that your mother had buried, boy, you know that. . . but what of your Acharite blood?"

Drago did not answer her, but merely stared.

"I can see that I shall have to explain more, and tell some of my own tale," Urbeth said, and settled herself more * 371 *.

comfortably. "Throw another log on that fire, Drago. It is not often I get the chance to toast my belly so efficiently.

"Ah, that's better. Now, as you related in the Story of the Sparrow - ah! he had a wit rarely found! - I bore three sons. The eldest, who eventually founded the Acharite race, I cast from my door, and turned my back on all his pleas for love."

"You favoured the younger two," Faraday said, trying to think it through. "The founders of the Icarii and Charonite races. Magical races. And yet you said that the eldest son had as much magic ..."

"As much potential magic," Urbeth replied. "I cast him from my door and from my heart because he denied his heritage. He found the very word 'enchantment' distasteful, let alone the concept and the power itself that lay in his breast."

She shot Drago a significant glance, and Drago averted his eyes.

"The Acharites have ever been distrustful of magic," Faraday said. "Thus the Seneschal were able to attain such a tight grip on their souls."

"Aye," Urbeth said. "My eldest son was a fool. He had so much! And yet he denied it. He buried it deep, and refused to allow its presence. When I realised that he would never accept his heritage, I grew angry, and cast him from my heart and my house before I gave in to the overwhelming temptation to eat him."

Urbeth paused, and bared her teeth in a silent snarl, as if she could see her eldest son standing before her now - a tempting meal.

"The pain must have been the greater," Faraday said very softly, "for that the son was fathered by he whom you loved most. To lose a child made in such great love ..."

Drago shot an unreadable look at her. Did she think of Axis all day? And long for him all night?

Urbeth chose not to comment on Faraday's words. "So my son wandered onto the plains," she said, "and interbred with 372 .

the humanoid peoples he found there. From his loins sprang the Acharites, a breed hatefully resistant to all forms of magic, a breed given to murdering all wielders of magic they encountered, and yet a breed who carried the seed of profound magic within their b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

"And what does this magic consist of?" Drago asked. "How may the Acharites use it?"

"Ah," Urbeth said. "Thereby lies a problem. Both you and Faraday have managed to touch the magic within, and with investigation and acceptance, you will learn how to use it, and to what uses it may be put."

"Thus our ability to withstand the ravages of the Demons," Faraday said.

She turned to Drago, her eyes bright with excitement. "All the Acharites will be able to -"

"No!" Urbeth barked, and Faraday turned back to her.

"No," the Enchantress repeated more softly. "Hear me out. My eldest - I can no longer bear to utter his name! - rejected his heritage so completely that the ability to use it has now virtually been lost to all Acharites. There is only one way that a person of Acharite blood can touch his or her enchantment. A process they must experience that can shock their power to the fore. Faraday? Drago? What experience did you both share, what shattering process, that enabled both of you to touch your power?"

They sat in silence for some moments, and when Drago spoke, his voice was peculiarly flat.

"We have both died," he said, "and been reborn. Recreated."

"Yes," Urbeth said. "The only way you can use the heritage your ancestor chose to deny for you is to die - and then somehow manage a re-creation."

Again, silence.

"But the Goodwives ..." Faraday said.

"They touched what can only be called a ten thousandth of their heritage," Urbeth said. "And Goodwife Renkin was 373.

so powerful only because the Mother chose her as a conduit."

"As I," Faraday said, nodding slowly. "The power I had as Faraday Tree Friend was the Mother's power."

"Yes," Urbeth said. "And now both of you enjoy power, your own power, via death and then rebirth."

Drago thought of Noah, and thought of the power of the craft. "Over the hundreds of thousands of years the craft have lain in the ground," he said in a voice so low the others could barely hear him, "they have infused their power into the land. Noah infused that same power into the child he and you made. Thus the Acharites - potentially - wield the power of the craft and the land itself."

"Aye," Urbeth said quietly. "You understand."

"What about the Sceptre?" Drago said in a slightly louder voice. He glanced towards the staff leaning against the wall by the bed.

"The Sceptre," she continued, "was a way by which the Acharite power could be used by those who denied their heritage. Axis wielded some of that power when he destroyed Gorgrael - and part of the reason he was able to do that was because he combined Acharite power with Icarii and Avar power - but he was able to do so only because of the Sceptre."

"Thus the symbols of StarSon and Sceptre intertwine," Faraday said. "The power of the Sceptre, the power of the land, has been infused into the StarSon. Not via the Sceptre, but via death."

"Aye," Urbeth said, pleased with the woman. Then she shifted her sharp black eyes to Drago.

"You remind me of my eldest son," she said. As Urbeth continued to speak her tone rose until she was almost shouting. "Denying your heritage. Fool! Don't you realise that you must be the one to meet Qeteb?

Only you have the power to do so?"

"But Caelum must meet Qeteb ..." Drago said. No! He could not seize Caelum's heritage again. He couldn't.

374 .

Urbeth looked at him pityingly. "Drago, you know the answer to that. Caelum relies exclusively on Icarii power, and to defeat the TimeKeeper Demons you need -'

"You need Acharite power!" Faraday shouted, jumping up and startling both Urbeth and Drago. "Because Noah is one of the Enemy who originally trapped Qeteb, and because Noah fathered the Acharites, and thus we bear his blood - and power. And thus the Acharite race are the Enemy!"

She whipped back to Drago, taking his face between her hands, and he caught his breath at the beauty in her excited face.

"Drago! That's what you said after you'd come back through the Star Gate. You said you were the Enemy.

And you literally are You," she thumped his chest with her hand, then hit her own chest, and turned back to Urbeth, "and I, as all Acharites who eventually manage to worm their way through death and accept their heritage, are the Enemyl"

"And thus you all have the ability to turn against the Demons," Urbeth said. "Although you, Drago, as StarSon, are the one who must face the final confrontation. But, yes, the Acharites all carry within them the seed of the power that initially trapped Qeteb."

"StarSon," Drago said tonelessly.

Faraday knelt before him and again took his face between gentle hands. "Ah, Drago," she said. "Surely you must understand. You were born StarSon. The Maze Gate named the Crusader as the StarSon at your birth, not Caelum's. As an infant, you knew instinctively that you were the StarSon. And Azhure, caught in fate, did the one thing to ensure your inheritance . . . she stripped you of your Icarii blood and made your Acharite blood dominant. Don't you see? Don't you understand? The StarSon is the Enemy reborn, and you are the StarSon. You have always, always been."

Urbeth watched silently as Drago hung his head. Faraday leaned closer, cradling his face against her shoulder.