She tensed, her hands on his chest. "You journeyed back through the stars in your desperate need to redeem yourself to Tencendor, not for me. Is it not Tencendor you should be forcing to your bed?"

"Curse you, Faraday!" Drago cried, and let her go. "Why do you stay with me if you hate me this much?"

"Because I promised Noah I would be your friend," she said. "And that is the only reason."

Drago stared at her a long searching minute before he replied. "I do not believe you. How hard did you have to fight with yourself, Faraday, not to come to that well-remembered chamber again tonight?"

"And how much do you wonder," she countered, "whose name I would have had ringing through my mind as I let you love me? Whose shoulders I would feel under my hands? Whose mouth I wanted to feel on mine before all others?" "All stars d.a.m.n you," Drago said weakly. "Why won't you accept love when it is given you freely? I have no paramour hiding in Spiredore across the Lake. No lover awaiting me in some secret bed. I would be yours, and yours only."

"No." Faraday shook her head slowly back and forth, and her eyes glistened with tears. "You lie. You have a paramour and a lover and one you are destined to betray me for."

565.

"Oh, for the G.o.ds -"

"If I let you love me, if I let me love you, then I would condemn myself to the same fate I suffered at Axis'

hands."

"Who would I betray you for, Faraday?" he asked softly. "Who, dammit?"

She stared at him. "You would betray me for Tencendor."

And then she pushed roughly past him and was gone.

59.

1 Fate Deserved?

*566.

They had come directly south, moving through the north-western portion of the ranges where the forest had not stretched so they could conserve power rather than expend it fighting the trees.

The trees could wait. Their time for destruction had not yet come.

The four Demons who were left were close to the maximum power they could achieve without Qeteb to aid them. They had drunk deeply of the souls available in Tencendor, and had deepened their own abilities, but until Qeteb walked beside them, snarling with the laughter of life, they were necessarily contained.

As Rox's death had demonstrated.

If Qeteb had been there, the struggle would have ended somewhat differently.

As they rode, each of the Demons' eyes drifted to the boy riding beside StarLaughter. Her get would provide the flesh and blood for their reborn saviour, but not the reborn son she craved. StarLaughter somehow believed - foolish birdwoman - that it was her son DragonStar who would be reborn with the power of Qeteb .. . but the Demons knew a little differently.

There was no DragonStar SunSoar, son of StarLaughter and WolfStar. There was only ever a sc.r.a.p of flesh that was suitable to be preserved until the time was ripe for it to be * 567 *

suffused with the life parts so horribly stolen by the Enemy. What StarLaughter had given birth to in the extremity of her murderous plunge through the Star Gate had been a mangled, dead clump of b.l.o.o.d.y flesh.

Nothing else.

StarLaughter had clung to that sc.r.a.p as she drifted through the stars, her madness and desire for revenge giving it form and life where there had been none.

None . . . until she'd come to the attention of the Demons. Not only was StarLaughter, as all the children who cried out for revenge with her, a link to the land the Demons needed to get to, she'd had the lump of lifeless and malleable flesh the Demons needed.

A house for Qeteb.

And so they'd given it back some form for the poor woman to cuddle, and so she had clutched it to her breast for four thousand useless years.

StarLaughter was completely, utterly, mad, and the Demons were not quite sure what to do with her once Qeteb was risen and the need for such tools negated. The Hawkchilds could still be useful - but StarLaughter? Qeteb could decide, the Demons mutually, and silently, agreed. If he wanted he could eat her, if he wanted he could f.u.c.k her. They truly didn't care.

Of Drago they thought occasionally, but they did not waste any worry on him. He should not have survived the leap through the Star Gate, but he had. They should have killed him when they had the chance, but he'd done nothing with his unexpected life - no doubt he was now secreted in some cave dribbling resentment - and could be disposed of later, like StarLaughter, as Qeteb saw fit.

As everything would eventually be disposed of as Qeteb worked out his purpose.

For her part, StarLaughter was just as content as the Demons were. She knew the Demons regarded her son from time to time as they rode, and she knew that sometimes their unreadable eyes were cast in her direction. But that only 568 *.

made StarLaughter happy. She did not trust them, and in time her son would dispose of them as he saw fit.

StarLaughter was very, very sure of that.

Now, she stopped.

"He is here, closel" she hissed.

They had halted their black creatures - no longer even vaguely resembling horses, but rather immense black worms with stumpy legs - a few hundred paces from the western rim of Fernbrake crater.

"What?" Sheol said vaguely. She, and the Demons, were concentrating on the still-hidden Lake. There was something there . . . not quite right.

"WolfStar!" StarLaughter said, and half-turned her creature so that it faced south. "So close!" StarLaughter clenched a fist and struck her own breast. "I feel him. Here!"

Sheol looked at her fellow Demons. WolfStar? And with him . . . herl That other lump of flesh could be more useful than they'd originally planned now that Rox was no more.

"Where?" Sheol said, far more interested now.

StarLaughter pointed. "Through there."

Through the forest. The Demons vacillated.

"Not far," StarLaughter said. "But a few minutes walk." She paused. "Might that be too much for you?"

"We can afford a few minutes," Sheol said evenly, although she longed to tear StarLaughter to shreds.

"Will you lead the way?"

They abandoned their creatures, leaving them to snout through the dirt for insects, and walked down the path StarLaughter indicated. The trees closed in about them, and whispers and eyes followed their steps.

Sheol's lips, as those of her fellows, curled in a silent snarl, and the trees retreated slightly.

StarLaughter slowed, and she raised a hand to caution the Demons. Then she lowered it and pointed into a small glade ahead. Here.

569.

The Demons nodded, and crowded at her shoulder to see for themselves.

An enchantment! Mot cried through their minds. He has been gaoled beneath an enchantment!

Before them WolfStar sat rigid, his back to them, beneath a glowing emerald dome. Several guards, Avar men, were s.p.a.ced about the glade. They did not realise the presence lurking just beyond the first shadows of the bushes.

Do you recognise the enchantment? Sheol asked in StarLaughter's mind.

It is of the trees and earth, StarLaughter replied. Easily broken by such as you.

Sheol again resisted the urge to reach out and slice the birdwoman to shreds - by the darkness itself, she had almost outlived her usefulness! - and looked more carefully about the clearing.

/ cannot see her, she said.

Who? StarLaughter asked.

There was an instant's pause as all four Demons resisted the overwhelming urge to flay her, then .. .

The girl-child he had with him, Sheol said.

Ah, StarLaughter thought, the one he betrayed me for. Well, no doubt I can wreak my revenge on her as well.

WolfStar must know where she is.

The Demons silently agreed.

We will remove the enchantment, Mot said, and those who guard him.

First. . . the men. Sheol opened her mouth, and her teeth lengthened and curved.

Her eyes glittered, and then changed, becoming dark fluid that roiled about in their orbits.

Her skin paled to a desperate whiteness.

The three Avar men, standing about the emerald dome, lifted their heads and stared towards the shrubbery where Sheol stood. Their eyes were stricken . . . despairing.

570 .

WolfStar slowly raised his head and stared at the man nearest him. His back stiffened, and he turned his head very, very slightly, but otherwise made no reaction.

The Avar men were not armed, loathing any kind of weapon, but Sheol nevertheless had her way with them. One dug his fingers into his eyes, wriggling them in as far as he could go until he dropped dead to the ground.

Even then his fingers continued to worm.

Another took a great stone from the ground and beat himself over the skull with it.

When he, too, dropped dead to the ground, his hand continued to lift the rock and smash it against his skull until the crackle of wet bone gave way to the dull thud of pounded meal.

The third merely tore a wrist-thick branch from a st.u.r.dy bush and impaled himself on it. His body heaved up and down on the blood-soaked stick in a parody of love long after he had ceased to breathe.

WolfStar's head moved very slightly, enough so he could see all three Avar men from the corner of his eyes, but he otherwise still did not move.

He certainly did not look behind him.

Now the enchantment. Barzula waved a hand towards the glade, and a wind of immense power, and yet curiously without movement, lifted the emerald dome from WolfStar and smashed it against two nearby trees until it lay in useless shards amid the exposed roots.

WolfStar finally rose. He fastidiously dusted himself down, rearranged the feathers of one wing, and pulled one boot more comfortably along the close fit of his calf. His nonchalant behaviour concealed horrified thoughts. The Demons! Here! WolfStar cursed his stupidity. He had allowed himself to be captured by Drago and held until the Demons had arrived.

What would happen if Niah fell into the Demons' control? What would they do to her?

What would they do with her?

'571.

Giving his breeches a final dust down, WolfStar slowly-turned around.

If StarLaughter had expected him to show fear, she was disappointed. Even without power, WolfStar looked every bit as haughty, and every bit as malignant, as the day he'd hurled StarLaughter through the Star Gate.

"I would imagine," he said to the bushes before him, "that after four thousand years, StarLaughter, you have thought of the perfect curse to a.s.sail me with. Why so silent?"

She stepped forth, and her appearance - the bloodied and rent gown, the wild eyes - finally caused WolfStar to raise an eyebrow. For her part, StarLaughter could do little but stare at him. For so long she had hungered for this moment, for so long she had - "At least you have managed to come back through the Star Gate," WolfStar said, "even if you have taken your sweet time about it. Have you brought me power, then, as I requested?"

Hate rippled across StarLaughter's face, and her hands jerked into fists. "/ have power, WolfStar, and you have none. How does that feel? How does it feel, Talon-of-naught, to know you have no more sorcery than the smallest of worms?"

"Whatever I have done," WolfStar said quietly, his eyes not leaving her face, "I will go to my grave knowing I did not destroy this beloved land in order to -"

"But you were prepared to kill innocent children, weren't you, to gain power!"

"You were hardly innocent, StarLaughter. You l.u.s.ted for power as much as I."

"Our son was innocent, and yet you murdered him," StarLaughter whispered. "Two hundred and more you sent to the grave to garner yet more power for yourself. Never think to judge me for what you would have done yourself had you the chance!"

"Our son was corrupted with your blood from the moment he was conceived. Stars only know if I was the * 572 <>

father, or if any one of the dozens of birdmen you coupled with behind my back planted him in you."

StarLaughter shrieked with rage. "I lay with no-one but you! And Stars only know my experience of love at your hands was enough to dissuade me from anyone else's bed!"

WolfStar tensed, and his eyes blazed. Had he ever loved this woman? No! How could he have done!

"Your frigid character mirrored itself in your performance in bed," he said. "I sighed with relief when you said you were pregnant. I would as soon lie with a corpse as with you."

It was too much; all StarLaughter could think of was that he'd murdered her, and then betrayed her with another. Her face contorted with loathing, she summoned every last skerrick of power the Demons had given her and threw it all at WolfStar. He gasped, and collapsed to one knee, doubling about the crippling agony that had but a moment ago been his belly.

"And so I suffered," she hissed, "giving birth to your son in the lifeless wastes beyond the Star Gate!"

"Is that the best you can do?" he rasped, raising his face to her. "The best? I would have expected more from -"