"When do we start the evacuation?" he asked.

"Leave it several days, if only because there are still tens of thousands of Icarii filing down into Sanctuary, and the arrival of Carlon's bulk would only create more chaos."

"So we just sit here until - ?" Theod began.

"No." Drago rose from his chair and picked up his staff. "There are several things to be done. First.. .

Leagh."

519.

53.The Enchanted Song Book For two days the combined wisdom of Star Finger pondered the riddle of the Enchanted Song Book. It was read, fingered, examined, held up to the light and gently tapped for hidden s.p.a.ces, and although Axis and Azhure shook their heads, as did the other Star G.o.ds, and the scholars admitted themselves perplexed, Caelum seemed unperturbed.

After two days, as his parents and Adamon uselessly thumbed through the book in Caelum's apartment, he retrieved the book from their fingers, opened it up, and explained.

"Drago showed me how ^-" "Drago?'" Axis asked.

Caelum hesitated a little before answering. "He learned well in his journey through the Star Gate."

Axis bit back a tart reply. Drago had learned only treacheries, more like - and what twisted advice had he now pa.s.sed on to Caelum?

Caelum opened the book, and pointed to the strange scribblings that meandered up and down lines.

"Yes, yes," Adamon said, leaning over Axis' shoulder. "A script, to be sure, but we know of none like it, and it is not like that about the Maze Gate -"

"Drago told me that it is written in the language of the ancient Enemy," Caelum said, "but it does not represent words, it represents -"

520.

"Music!" Azhure cried. "It is music."

Caelum grinned and nodded. "Yes. Songs . .. and once we decipher the music, and learn the Songs, we will know to what purpose that can be put."

Axis slowly raised his head from the open book before him, and smiled.

Dance.

It did not take them long to decipher the script into music. The tune was easy, for the odd black-fletched circles ran up and down a series of horizontal lines, and to merely follow their progress was to decipher the tune.

Tone was a little more difficult, until Azhure noted the strange symbols at the start of every tune, and wondered if it was they that set the tone. From there it was merely a process of finding the tone that suited each symbol, and to a race which had spent its existence surrounded by music, that was but child's play.

And once they'd deciphered each Song and committed them to memory - again, a trifling ch.o.r.e to those addicted to music - there was the problem of discovering the steps that suited each Song.

Again, not a difficult task to those who were more Icarii than human, although all were careful not to complete an entire dance lest they call some unknown and dreadful destruction down upon themselves.

Within but a few days, Caelum not only had the book, he had the Dances the book contained. Once again, hope drifted about the corridors of Star Finger.

"We must test this," Caelum said one morning, as the dawn miasma cleared to reveal a glorious clear day atop Star Finger.

"I agree," Axis said, and walked some way about the platform that encircled the huge central shaft which fed light and air into the mountain.

They were alone on the peak. Caelum and his father had made it a habit to stroll the heights each morning to watch 521.

the miasma disappear. It always vanished from the high places first, and as they emerged, they could see the grey, bleak haze sliding down the mountain and rippling over the plains, back towards its source.

"They must be close to Fernbrake Lake now," Axis murmured, watching the miasma contract to a point far in the south.

"Yes. Father, I must meet them at Grail Lake."

Axis nodded, opened his mouth to say something, and then involuntarily ducked as something dark swooped down from the out of the sun.

Caelum suppressed a cry, remembering not only Gorgrael's plunge from the sky, but also the Gryphon that had attacked him and Azhure atop Spiredore.

It was a lone Hawkchild, and it contented itself with one swoop, not daring to attack on its own.

"No doubt reporting our movements to its masters," Caelum said, biting down nausea.

"What better time to test out the dances," Axis said. Stars! How he wished this was his battle to execute.

"Think only of the Hawkchild, direct all your concentration to it, direct the dance to it... and see what happens."

Caelum squinted into the sun. The Hawkchild was circling high in the sky above him.

He lowered his eyes to his father, and gave a curt nod.

Axis stepped well back, giving Caelum full use of the s.p.a.ce available.

Caelum stood for a while, his head down, thinking and focusing his concentration. Which one to attempt?

Eventually he decided that any would be as good as the next, for he could not know what any of them would do until he tried it.

And so he picked one of the shorter dances, one with savage staccato foot and leg movements and angry, violent body rhythms. Savage anger was something Caelum felt like letting out - but he also knew the dance would work. It had to. It was fated to.

522.

Wasn't he the StarSon? He suppressed a grim smile.

Caelum commenced the dance, and, apart from keeping the image of the circling Hawkchild at the forefront of his mind, he lost himself entirely in its rhythms.

As he moved further and further into the dance, Caelum felt himself begin to seethe with hate and violence, radiate it. He felt power infuse him - not quite in the same manner as it had when he'd sung Songs, but just as powerful - and he let the rage and hate ripple forth.

Standing in the alcove leading to the stairwell, Axis gasped, and started in shock.

Caelum's face had twisted into a mask of malevolence, and his fingers were twitching violently - not a requirement of the dance.

"Caelum?" he said, and tensed as if to take a step forward.

Caelum roared, and Axis flinched in deep shock. The sound had been frightful, and he found it difficult to believe that it had come from Caelum - he had literally felt the waves of hate rippling off his son.

What was happening?

"Caelum!" he yelled, and prepared to stop his son ... what was this dance transforming him into?

Just as Axis made up his mind to dash Caelum to the ground and out of the dance, there was a terrible scream from overhead. Axis jerked his neck up, cricking his neck painfully.

A black shape plummeted from the sky - the Hawkchild - but as it fell closer, Axis could see that it had been twisted and mangled as if by a brutal, angry hand.

Axis looked back to Caelum. He was moving so fast he was almost a blur, his arms and legs and head all jerking violently to the demands of the hate-filled dance.

"Caelum!" Axis screamed . .. and then the Hawkchild hit the platform about two paces from Caelum.

It broke apart on impact, splattering blood and flesh about * 523 .

the entire mountain top. Both Axis and Caelum were covered in it.

Caelum faltered to a halt, staring down at the remains of the Hawkchild with eyes clouded with rancour. He roared again - a frightful sound - and threw himself upon the ground, tearing into the bits lying about with his fingernails and teeth.

"Caelum!" Axis screamed yet once more, and threw himself atop his son, dragging Caelum's head back until he heard his neck creak. "Caelum, d.a.m.n you! Wake out of this rage!"

For an instant Axis thought he'd lost his son completely, then Caelum's body relaxed and the hate faded from his face.

"Let me go," he wheezed.

Axis hesitated, then decided that he'd heard enough reason in Caelum's voice to risk freeing him. He stood up, slipping a little in the blood and flesh that surrounded them, and let Caelum's head go.

Caelum rose to his hands and knees, then retched so violently Axis had to kneel down and support him.

"Stars, Caelum," he whispered when his son had finally done. "What happened?"

Caelum slowly sat up and wiped his mouth. "I have never felt like that before. It must have been a dance of pure hatred, and in performing it, I felt every nuance of that hatred and rage. G.o.ds, father! It almost tore me apart. If I'd had to continue any longer ..."

He looked about him. "Well, at least we know it works."

Sheol tipped her head back and screamed and roared and yowled. Every one of the other Demons did the same, and their demon-horses screeched and bucked.

Grey miasmic haze issued forth from their mouths, enveloping the company in a mist of corruption.

StarLaughter, fighting to gain some semblance of control over her own mount as well that of her son's, looked on in a ,524 *

combination of bewilderment and panic that the Demons should have suddenly reacted like this.

"What's wrong?" she yelled as soon as both Demons and horse had regained something resembling composure.

"The StarSon!" Mot hissed, and the other demons howled at the word. "The StarSon!"

"What about him?" StarLaughter cried. What had gone wrong now?

"He has eaten one of our Hawkchilds!"

"But. . . but... I thought his power had gone!"

"Well, he has found some morel" Sheol screamed so violently that spittle sprayed over the entire company. "And it tastes of the Enemy."

"The Enemy?" StarLaughter said. "But-"

Mot snarled, twisting his entire face like melting clay with the movement. "But he will not trick Qeteb with the likes of that! Not again! No!"

Suddenly all the Demons were screaming in laughter rather than rage.

"No! No! No!" they cried. "Qeteb will turn it against you this time!"

They went into convulsions of laughter, although the sound was still thin and harsh. Then, as one, they stopped.

"We will slaughter him," Sheol said.

Caelum slowly rose to his feet.

"Father, will you pledge me one thing?"

"Surely. What is it?"

"If I die, give the Song Book to Drago."

"No! I would rather cast it from the -"

"Do this for me!" Caelum screamed and gripped his father by the shoulders, shaking him. "If you love me, then pledge methis"

Shaken to the very core of his being, Axis nodded jerkily. "If you wish."

"Then pledge it."

"525".

Axis ran his tongue about his lips. "Very well. Caelum, on everything I hold dear, I pledge to you that should you die, I will give the Enchanted Song Book to Drago."

Caelum stared at him, searching for any deception in his father's eyes. Then he spun him about, and flung one arm out to indicate the continent spread out below Star Finger.

"Tencendor is your witness, Axis SunSoar. Fail your pledge, and you fail this entire land!"

* 526.

The Cruelty of Love StarDrifter had not returned into Sanctuary immediately after leaving Faraday, Drago and the girl on the silver-tracery bridge. True, he'd begun to walk that way, but the thought of talking to Zenith made him feel uncomfortable, and so StarDrifter found himself walking back over the bridge and up the stairwell to the Overworld.

There he'd re-inspected the screen of trees that Drago had erected, marvelling at the skill of the man.

"But then, he is my grandson," StarDrifter murmured, and grinned at his own self-satisfaction.

From there he talked a while with WingRidge, and then with FreeFall and EvenSong, who had finally made the trek from their palace in the peaks to Fernbrake below, and then StarDrifter had found himself at a loss for something to do with the evening drifting in. He still preferred not to talk with Zenith. Above all else, he feared what she might say to him.