He had taken the enchantment in both hands, and had now stretched it to over three times its original size.

Then he lowered it gently over Katie so that she was surrounded by it.

It glowed a deep crimson - and then vanished.

"It is still there," Leagh said to her husband and Theod, who had moved in surprise. "But invisible. The child is protected."

The child sat very calmly, her eyes downcast, and Drago sketched another symbol in the air.

This was stunningly complicated, and it seemed to Faraday that it would never end. The five fingers on his right hand seemed to move completely independently of each other, while the hand itself danced and wove through the air.

The feathered lizard watched, a frown of deep concentration on its face. Finally Drago's hand jerked to a halt, and he drew a deep breath.

"My friend," he said to the lizard, and the lizard began the tiring task of retracing the enchantment in light.

When it hovered complete in the air before Drago, it was of a strange light, almost a grey light, and to those watching from above it was very, very hard to see in the night air.

607'.

But from what they could see of it, it was composed of hundreds, if not thousands, of intertwining lines.

Drago put down his staff and took the enchantment in both hands.

Then he began to compress it. It took considerable strength, for occasionally he grunted, and his shoulders visibly heaved with the effort, but finally the enchantment, now a small ball of grey light, sat in the palm of his left hand.

With his right, Drago drew an arrow from the quiver, pausing briefly to run his fingers through its beautiful blue-dyed feathers.

Then he placed the enchantment on to the arrowhead, shrugged the Wolven off his shoulder, and fitted the arrow to the bow.

"What is he going to do?" Theod asked.

"He is springing a trap," Leagh said. "That is all I know. A trap."

"I can tell no more," Faraday added at Theod's querying look. "Just trust him, please."

There was a tw.a.n.g, and the arrow shot into the air. Drago must be fitter and stronger than I imagined, Zared thought, for I had heard that only the strongest of Icarii could wield that weapon.

But Drago's lithe body obviously held all the strength the Wolven needed, for the arrow shot straight and true into the air, rising higher and higher until it was lost to sight.

Faraday and Leagh both suddenly shivered.

"We cannot see it," Leagh said. "But that enchantment has risen high into the sky where the arrow released it. It has expanded to a thousand hundred times its former size, and its grey lines of light now hang invisible in the night sky."

"A net?" Zared asked.

"Aye," Faraday replied softly. "A net."

And then all four jumped in surprise, for the arrow plunged down into the earth at their very feet. Faraday 608.

leaned down and retrieved it, running her fingers up and down its length before finally stowing it under her belt.

Leagh's eyes widened slightly as she saw what Faraday wore under the cloak. "Faraday!" she whispered.

Faraday looked at her, the cloak falling closed about her form.

Leagh unwrapped her own cloak a little, enough for Faraday to see what she wore.

"Why?" Faraday said.

Leagh took her time in replying, and when she did, she looked at Drago rather than Faraday. "We have both walked the field of flowers, Faraday, and are thus sisters.

"And this night I think we shall have a third join us."

Faraday shuddered, clutching cloak tight about her with white fingers. "And Goldman and DareWing, if Drago accepts him?"

Leagh grinned, a wide, disarming smile, and looked Faraday in the eye. "But they are men, Faraday. Men! How can they be 'sisters'?"

Faraday stared at her, and then she laughed, and hugged Leagh quickly to her.

"You are not alone any more," Leagh whispered into Faraday's ear, "for you shall end this night with two sisters closer than any blood sisters can be."

Faraday blinked back tears, overwhelmed with emotion. Not alone any more? But she had always been alone!

"Never more," Leagh whispered.

"What are you two mumbling about," Zared asked.

"Nothing," both women replied as one, and straightened, Faraday turning away momentarily to control her emotions.

They looked back to Drago.

He was staring straight at them, and Faraday wondered if somehow he'd heard what she and Leagh had whispered.

"He will one day wish to retrieve his arrow," Leagh said, but Faraday did not reply.

"What do you mean, 'a net'?" Theod asked, having * 609 .

completely missed the emotion and exchanges of the past few moments.

"Drago has constructed a huge net in the sky with his enchantment," Faraday said. "Neither you nor Zared were there to see it, but when Drago brought Leagh back, he enveloped her in an enchantment of light. He will do something similar here, methinks."

She fell silent, and watched Drago bend down to Katie to whisper something in her ear.

"A huge net," Faraday finally said. "I think he means to entice the twenty thousand, or whatever of them remains, to this spot, and the ravines and gullies surrounding them, then trap them under his enchantment."

"How so 'entice'?" Zared asked. He had moved to Leagh's side, and had wrapped his arms about her to keep some of the freezing night air at bay. For her part, Leagh cuddled comfortably against his body, relieved beyond measure that he was not only here, but chose to hold her so close.

"He will entice them with the child," Faraday said, and her voice hardened to brittleness. "G.o.ds forgive him if he harms her, for / shall not do so."

Leagh twisted her face slightly to look at her, but she did not say anything. Beneath them, the child began to sing, and all eyes dropped down to her.

Drago had stepped back a pace or two, and now stood behind the child. With his right hand he set the staff firmly in the gra.s.s, and with his left snapped his fingers to call the feathered lizard to his side. It settled down close beside him, keeping its eyes on the child.

Both Leagh and Faraday could feel the crimson enchantment about the child, though they did not see it. It throbbed, and they could feel the beat in their blood.

The beat of the Star Dance? They only knew it was a beat that not only they, but the entire land of Tencendor throbbed with, and they closed their eyes, and swayed gently with the rhythm of the beat and of the song Katie sang.

610 .

The child sang a lullaby, one that all, save Drago, could remember their mothers singing over their toddling cradles. It was a sweet song, one that was redolent with innocence and the joyous dreams of the sinless. It spoke of all-encompa.s.sing motherly love, and of fields waving with grain and the cheerful scarves and smiles of the harvesters in the fields within which children could play from dawn to dusk without fear, and whose golden acres of grain dipped and swayed to the music of their laughter and song. This was a land without tears, a land without fear, and a land where all knew that death was but a short walk through the gate never dared into the next field ...

. . . the field of flowers, a field thick with peonies and cornflowers and poppies, and crowned with millions of lilies, perhaps billions of them, white and gold and crimson, waving their joyous throats at the sun.

"That is not quite the same lullaby that I seem to remember," Theod said softly.

"Nor I," Zared said.

Faraday smiled a little, but it was Leagh who responded, her hand on her belly.

"But it is the lullaby / shall sing our child to sleep with, methinks," she said, and smiled at Zared.

Katie sings of the land that will be, Faraday thought, once Drago brings Tencendor through death and into the field of lilies. And again, to her annoyance, she had to blink back tears. I demand that right to walk among the lilies, too, Drago, she thought, and I will not let love for you trap me in a dark world without flowers. "Look," said Zared, and the tone of his voice made all raise their heads.

Shapes were creeping through the night towards Katie. Some slithered, some crept, some writhed on their bellies, and some crawled, but none walked upright. There were shapes so small they could only be babes in arms. There were shapes with wings, members of what had once been the Icarii Strike Force.

611.

Zared was cold with horror. Not so much at the b.e.s.t.i.a.l nature of what writhed and crept through the night, for he had steeled himself against that sight, but at the thought that among these beasts also crawled the Icarii Strike Force. He had grown up with the tales of their heroism and valour during Axis' battles with Gorgrael, and had grown up with the sight of them dancing in the air above Sigholt.

To think of them now crawling through the ravines and gullies through dirt and brambles towards this child - as the Gryphon had once crawled through the snow and ice of Gorken Pa.s.s towards Azhure - was almost too much to bear.

He turned his face away, unable to watch.

"They come drawn by Katie's song," Faraday said quietly. "Towards its innocence and beauty and hope."

She paused. "They want to destroy it, and kill the singer, for of all things in their maddened world that they cannot stand, it is innocence and hope."

Zared closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then forced himself to look back towards the child.

She continued to sing, but her lullaby was now underscored by the whisperings and bowlings of those that crawled towards her.

"G.o.ds," Zared said quietly, and that was all that any of them said for a very long time.

All through the night the twenty thousand crept towards the singer, some from over three leagues away.

They crept through rocks and ravines, dirt and gullies, leaving trails of their blood and excrement where they went. And as they crept, they whispered and chattered, howled and shrieked, for the visions the songstress conjured in their minds were horrible to them, and all they wanted to do was tear her to shreds, so that the lilies and the field of flowers would fade from their minds forever.

When the first crawlers and creepers had reached within three paces of Katie, Drago stepped about her, hefted his staff, then speared it into the ground before her.

612 .

Then he resumed his place just behind her.

The watchers above squinted, and wondered if it was the distance and height from the staff that made it seem so blurry, but Faraday and Leagh came to understand that the staff was quivering, just slightly, but so fast that its outlines were blurred by the movement.

Between the staff and the still-invisible crimson enchantment about the girl, none of the creepers dared move to within two paces of her.

They fell to their bellies, snarling and spitting, reaching out tentative fingers, then s.n.a.t.c.hing them back in pain as they encountered the spreading vibrations (music) of the staff. Behind the first ranks an immense sea of creepers and crawlers gathered - what had once been men, women, children, and the Strike Force.

It was a ghastly sight. Zared, as Faraday and Theod, had thought that what they'd seen over past months had inured them to those who'd been taken by the Demons, but never had they seen this ma.s.s of undulating madness, and stench, and sores, and the sickening, sickening waste of lives and hopes. But they forced themselves to watch. These were people, subjects, friends, and, in one case, a wife and sons that made up this dark sea.

Leagh watched, not with horror, but with an immense sense of sadness. She could remember something of the dementia that had seized her mind and soul, and to see this many, this twenty thousand .. .

She wept for pity; the others wept with the horror.

It took hours for the twenty thousand to gather. In the lightening sky just before dawn, the watchers at the cave mouth could see that the entire gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce had filled and, beyond that, ravines and gullies awash with people writhing in the dirt, reaching out hands, rolling eyes, and wailing, wailing, wailing.

During all this time, Katie continued to sing, and Drago to stand immobile behind her.

613.

The feathered lizard, while it had spent the first two hours on the ground by Drago's side, had eventually raised itself to pace back and forth, back and forth before Katie, in case any of the creepers overcame their horror at the vibrating song of the staff.

"Zared," Faraday said, and found her throat was so dry her voice was harsh and almost unintelligible. She cleared her throat. "Zared, Theod. You must now go inside the cave. Dawn draws nigh, and Mot will spread his vaporous hunger within minutes. Go." "But Leagh -" Zared began.

"She will be well," Faraday said. "Their ravages cannot harm her now. Go!"

Zared looked once more at Leagh, but she gave him an impatient shove, and so Zared took an equally reluctant Theod back inside the cave's shade.

Far to the east, Mot reined in his black mount, tipped back his head, and stretched his mouth wide. Hunger filled the land.

Faraday looked to the east, and saw the pink glow of dawn stain the mountain peaks.

Then, just as the pink intensified into red, the light was clouded by the thickening grey miasma of Mot's hunger. Faraday could feel the familiar foul nibbles of the Demon at the edges of her mind, and she took Leagh's hand to rea.s.sure her.

"It is horrible," Leagh whispered. "I can feel him poking and prodding."

"He cannot enter, not now," Faraday said, and raised her eyes again to the befouled dawn light, "but he can still corrupt the land easily enough."

Mot had kicked his mount forward once his hunger had gushed forth, but now he pulled it to a halt again.

"Another," he said, his lips curling back from his teeth. "Another resists! How? How? How?"

* 614*

The two magicians, the two unknown magicians, were never far from the Demons' minds. Now another had joined their ranks. .

Several paces back, tied at his wrists by a short rope leading from the tail of StarLaughter's mount, WolfStar grinned.