Urbeth sat in the snow, hind legs splayed before her for balance, leaning back on one forepaw and cleaning the tufts of fur between the black pads of the other.

Her black eyes flickered at them as they stopped at the sight of her, then she waved them over. Behind her was a great barrel of what appeared to be fresh fish.

557.

"It has been a long time, Axis, lost G.o.d of Song, and Azhure, lost G.o.ddess of the Moon."

She dipped her head at Caelum, but did not speak to him.

"And a fair morning to you, Urbeth, strange bear of the north," Axis said, a hard edge to his voice. "Have the TimeKeeper Demons driven you out of your den in the icepack?"

"My cubs have all grown and now seek their own way in the world," Urbeth said. "I have nothing to interest me in the ice any more."

Azhure glanced up the Gorken Pa.s.s. "How do the Ravensbund fare, Urbeth? Have you seen them?"

Urbeth heaved a melodramatic sigh and rolled her eyes. "When the Demons struck I had every expectation they would appear at the edge of the ice-pack once more," she said, referring to the time when Gorgrael's Skraelings had driven the Ravensbundmen onto the ice where Urbeth had been forced to protect them by changing them into trees. "But for once they found their own methods of dealing with the bad hours," she continued. "They hide in their holes, and chafe at the fact they can no longer ride the ice-pack in search of seal."

"Ah," Azhure said. "The holes." The Ravensbund chief, Ho'Demi, had once shown her and Axis the holes: gigantic subsidences in the earth that sheltered warm springs, game and shelter.

"What do you here, Urbeth?" Caelum finally asked.

"Well," Urbeth said slowly, and stood up, shaking herself so rigorously the other three had to stand back.

"It came to my attention that your good self, as your parents, seemed to be intent on getting to Carlon. And yet, pitiful creatures that you be without your powers, I thought to myself, how do they expect to manage it?"

"What do you propose?" Axis snapped.

Azhure laid a hand on his arm, smiling apologetically at Urbeth.

558 <>

Urbeth shrugged in her own ursine way, and did not seem perturbed. Indeed, she seemed mildly amused.

"Axis, Azhure, the time has come to say goodbye to your son."

"No!" Azhure sounded terrified, and Axis took her arm, surprised at her emotion, even though he, too, was angry with the bear.

"We will go south with him," he said.

Urbeth shook her head, and although she kept her voice pleasant, her eyes were hard.

"This Caelum needs to do on his own. Let him go."

Caelum turned to his parents. "She is right. I do need to do this on my own."

"Caelum -" Azhure said, her voice breaking, and held out a trembling hand.

Caelum ignored the hand and enveloped her in a huge hug. "Thank you," he whispered. "For everything.

For my life, and for your love and belief in me."

She clung desperately to him, weeping inconsolably, and Caelum had to lean back and push her slightly away so he could look into her eyes.

"Let me go, Azhure," he whispered. "It is time."

Azhure didn't know what to do, what to say. What could she say? And how could she just let him go and turn away? How could she?

"Azhure," Urbeth said. "Let him go."

Azhure wrenched herself out of Caelum's hands and stumbled a few paces away.

Axis stared at her, distraught by her emotion but not understanding its full depth, then embraced Caelum himself. "Stars go with you," he whispered, then stood back.

Caelum reached out and touched his father's face one last time, wishing that he could have been the son Axis had wanted.

"Remember what you promised, Father."

Axis nodded. "But Drago will not need it."

559'.

Caelum let that go. He half-smiled, lifted his hand again as if he wanted to touch his father just one more time, then let it drop. Axis nodded at him, then took Azhure gently by the hand.

"Come, my love," he murmured. "Come home with me."

The last Caelum saw of his parents were their backs disappearing into the wind and snow.

"Well?" he asked of Urbeth, "what now?"

"Now? Why, we sit by the fire and wait."

Caelum narrowed his eyes. "What fire? Wait for what?"

"This fire," and suddenly there was a fire burning several paces distant. "And we wait for Drago. He will let us know when the time is right."

Caelum hesitated, then he shrugged and walked over to the fire. "I am sure we will have much to discuss while we wait," he said.

"That we will," Urbeth said. "That we will."

She paused. "Would you like a fish?"

560.

58 The Deep Blue Cloak of Betrayal Faraday left Leagh, put Katie to bed, and wandered the corridors of the palace. It was a strange night, and a strange walk, and Faraday found herself in the clutches of some strange sensation - not of the Demons'

doing, but of Fate's. She wandered the corridors, plunging from the extreme of hope and love to the nadir of despair and bitterness as she felt Fate's cold hand close about her. She loved Drago, but felt trapped by that love, and felt she would be lost if she ever admitted her love to Drago, let alone gave herself to him.

And, oh G.o.ds, how she wanted to give herself to him, to tell him she loved him! Yet, if she did that, she would die. Faraday understood that very completely now .. . she'd understood it the moment she'd walked into this long abandoned chamber.

Very many things had become clear to her as she'd wandered into this chamber.

It was empty, save for a great wardrobe that stood against a far wall. The wardrobe stared at her, screaming at her to come closer, and fling open its doors.

It had a gift for her.

Faraday stared, then helplessly drifted over and flung open the doors. The wardrobe contained a deep blue cloak and nothing else. The deep blue cloak she'd worn when she'd gone to Axis the day he'd killed Borneheld.

561.

She trembled violently, and stood back, wrapping her arms about herself.

Every muscle of her body, every nerve ending, screamed at her to now slip off her clothes until she stood white naked, save for the mantle of her desire. And then? Then to lift the cloak from its hook and slip it about her shoulders, tying the ta.s.sels at her throat, and walk the corridors of this palace until she came to Drago's chamber.

And when she slipped silently inside the door, Faraday knew what she would find.

Drago, asleep in a chair before the fire.

Thus had she found Axis, and thus had she given her body and love to Axis.

Faraday bent over, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her eyes shut, trying to find the courage to resist the call of both body and cloak.

Something, d.a.m.ned fate, now needed her to give herself to Drago as she'd once given herself to Axis. And what then . . . what then? Would he betray her love and need as Axis had done?

In the past weeks she'd found herself being dragged to Gorkenfort, and now to Carlon, retracing the steps of her previous life. Would she continue to retrace her previous mistakes and naivities until she stood held in the talons of some foul Demon in some misbegotten chamber, watching Drago intent on saving Tencendor and not her?

Was this what Noah has recreated her for? Was this her fate through life after life after d.a.m.ned, accursed life?

"No!" she cried and slammed shut the doors of the wardrobe. She would deny her love for Drago, deny her need for him, and thus save her life.

"No, no, no!" she whispered now, and tore herself away from the wardrobe. "Never! This land must find itself another way to save it than my blood!"

For doubtless this land would need blood to save it.

"And always my blood," she said. "Always mine. Why?"

She had to get out of this chamber. It was not the one 562 *.

she'd used when she'd gone from being Borneheld's wife to Axis' wh.o.r.e within the s.p.a.ce of a few hours, nor even the same palace, but it was a prison nevertheless . . . and the blue cloak had managed to find its way here.

Faraday took a deep breath, tucked a few stray tendrils of hair behind her ears, and wiped the wetness from her eyes.

It was night, and Demon-free, and even though the wind blew cold, a walk on the parapets might clear her mind enough to resist all the temptations and siren calls of fate.

But even so, Faraday's feet slowed outside Drago's chamber, and she paused to stare at his door for long minutes before she could force herself past.

G.o.ds, but she wanted him. She loved and adored him as she had never adored Axis. Drago had a gentleness that his father had never had, and a depth of compa.s.sion that exceeded anything his parents had. Did he get that from Rivkah? Faraday could not think where else.

"Ah! Stop these thoughts!" she chided herself, and forced her feet briskly towards the stairs leading to the parapets. "Find yourself a peasant with no destiny and be content!"

At that she had to smile. Her? Wrapped contentedly in some burly, work-odoured peasant's arms in a straw and lice-filled bed? And then her sense of humour truly resurrected itself, and Faraday laughed aloud at her own thoughts. That was her mother Merlion in her!

She opened the door to the parapets and breathed in the air gratefully, still smiling at what Merlion would have made of her daughter's thoughts on men and love. Sometimes Faraday pondered at the absurdity that her mother had ever submitted to the whole sweaty, thrusting business of love .. . but she must have done ...

at least once . .. unless her father got her so drunk one night she slept through the entire distasteful procedure.

Faraday giggled, and clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle her mirth. What could Merlion have thought when her belly 563.

began to swell with child? That a roving dark incubus had impregnated her during some nightmare?

Faraday's giggles increased, and she walked over to the stone walls stare at the sight of Carlon spread out below the palace. G.o.ds! She had to stop this line of thought!

"Why so merry, Faraday?" a soft voice said behind her, and she spun about, sobering into bright anger.

"What are you doing here!" she snapped.

Drago stopped, surprised by her tone. Hadn't they come to some workable arrangement? "I heard you pa.s.s my chamber," he said, "and I thought that I would -"

"Would what? Thought that you would open the door and seize me and drag me to your bed? Is that what you -"

"Stop it!" Now he, too, was angry. "For the G.o.ds' sakes, Faraday! What is the matter with you? I only wanted to speak with you."

Her face tightened, and she turned back to the view. "7 only want to be left alone."

"Faraday." Drago's voice had softened. "I would never force myself on you. You have very clearly stated you do not want me."

"SunSoar love forces itself everywhere," she said bitterly. "Your father would not take 'No' as a suitable response. How can you?"

Drago risked stepping closer to her. He put out a hand, thinking to touch her shoulder, then thought better of it. "What is wrong?"

She turned back to him, leaning against the parapet, her face tilted up to his. "Did you know that earlier I was remembering Axis?"

"Is that why you were laughing?"

"I was recalling the night that I came to him here. The night I went to his bed for the first time. Although,"

she paused, "one strictly cannot call the hearth rug a bed, can one?"

Drago's face tightened, but he did not speak.

*S64.

"What do you think of that, Drago? Did you realise that the first time I lay with your father it was here in Carlon? Did you know that, in the very chamber you now occupy, I spent many long nights with your father?"

"Would you like to give me a thrust by thrust description?" he snapped. "Would that appease your need to hurt me? To push me away?"

Faraday averted her face, angry with herself, but more so with him. Why was he here? Why?

Drago suddenly reached out and grabbed her to him, pressing her against his body. "d.a.m.n you!" he whispered. "I have travelled through the very stars to return to you. Do I deserve this much hatred?"