Sinner

SARA DOUGLASS

Sinner

Book One of The Wayfarer Redemption

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Fire-Night

Prologue

1 West and North

2 Master Goldman’s Soiree

3 StarSon Caelum

4 Beggars on the Floor, Travellers O’er the Bridge

5 Speaking Treason

6 The SunSoars at Home

7 Disturbing Arrivals

8 Maze Gate

9 WolfStar’s Explanation

10 Pastry Magics

11 Niah’s Legacy

12 Council of the Five Families

13 The Throne of Achar

14 A Moot Point

15 Murder!

16 SunSoar Justice

17 The Lake Guard on Duty

18 Hunting Drago

19 The Fugitive

20 Icebear Coast Camp

21 Travelling Home

22 Impatient Love

23 Minstrelsea

24 StarDrifter

25 DragonStar

26 The Sack (1)

27 Niah Triumphant

28 River Crossing

29 The Ancient Barrows

30 The Rainbow Sceptre

31 New Existences

32 The Questors

33 StarLaughter

34 Of What Is Lost

35 SpikeFeather’s Search

36 Kastaleon

37 The Leap

38 Zenith Lost

39 The Maze

40 The Maze Gate’s Message

41 A Town Gained, a Sceptre Lost

42 ForestFlight’s Betrayal

43 Faraday’s Lie

44 … And Sixty-Nine Fat Pigs

45 The Enemy

46 The TimeKeepers

47 Niah’s Grove

48 Carlon’s Welcome

49 Caelum Amid the Ruins

50 The Shadow-Lands

51 The King of Achar

52 Voices in the Night

53 An Army for the Asking

54 Journeying through the Night

55 The Blighted Beacon

56 Discussing Salvation

57 While WolfStar Lay Sleeping

58 As Clear as a Temple Bell

59 Zenith

60 Old Friends

61 An Army of Norsmen

62 The Warding of the Star Gate

63 Leagh’s Loyalties Divided

64 A Dagger from Behind

65 A Brother to Die For

66 In Caelum’s Camp

67 Caelum’s Judgment

68 Towards the Star Gate

69 The Fading of the Dance

70 Leap to the Edge

71 The Sack (2)

Epilogue: The Wasteland

Glossary

About the Author

By Sara Douglass

Copyright

About the Publisher

If poisonous minerals, and if that tree

Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,

If lecherous goats, if serpents envious

Cannot be damned, alas, why should I be?

Why should intent or reason, born in me,

Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?

John Donne, Holy Sonnet no. V

Fire-Night

The four craft crashed through the barriers between the outer universe and the planet, exploding in raging flames, creating the portal that later races would call the Star Gate.

The creatures inside fought for control of the craft, fought even knowing it was a lost cause – the craft had ceased to listen to them hundreds of years previously. But even when death was only moments away, their hands clung to navigation mechanisms, hoping to somehow save their cargo … and maybe even save the world to which they plummeted from their cargo.

It was useless. Most of them were drifting ashes by the time their flaming craft smashed deep into the surface of the planet.

Most of them. One, like the four craft, survived.

Within days the craft had shifted comfortably into the pits created by their violent arrival, accepting the waters that closed over their surface. For three thousand years they dreamed. Then they woke and began to grow, spreading their tentacles deep beneath the land, reaching out, each to the other. Their metalled surfaces and walkways and panels and compartments hummed with the music they had learned in the millennia they’d travelled the universe. But this music the craft kept to themselves, not letting it mix with the sound of the Star Dance that filtered through the Star Gate.

The Survivor occasionally woke from his own deep sleep, wandering the corridors of the craft and those hallways that extended between each craft, looking, looking, looking, but never finding.

“Katie!” he would cry, “Katie! I don’t know where it is!”

His searching always left him physically and emotionally exhausted, and within days of waking he would wander disconsolately back to his chamber, and there lie down to sleep yet again.

His dreams were disturbed, wondering why he’d survived, and yet not his comrades.

Wondering what the craft needed him to do.

Wondering whether the cargo was safe.

Wondering whether it would ever be claimed.

Wondering.

Aeons passed.

Prologue

Enchanter-Talon WolfStar SunSoar wrapped his wings tighter about his body and slipped deeper into the madness that consumed him. He stood at the very lip of the Star Gate itself, his body swaying gently to the sounds of the Star Dance that pounded through the Gate.

Come to me, come to me, join me, dance with me! Come!

Oh! How WolfStar wanted to! How he wanted to fling himself through the Gate, discover the mysteries and adventures of the universe, immerse himself completely in the loveliness of the Star Dance.

Yet WolfStar also wanted the pleasures of this life. The power he wielded as Talon over all Tencendor, the awe of the masses of Icarii, Avar and Acharite, and the firmness of StarLaughter’s body in his bed at night. He was not yet ready to give all that up. He had come young to the Talon throne, and wanted to enjoy it for as long as he could. But how the Star Gate tempted him …

Come! Join me! Be my lover! I have all the power you crave!

WolfStar could feel the indecision tearing him apart. Stars! What sorcery could be his if he managed to discover the full power of the Star Dance and ruled this mortal realm of Tencendor!

I want it all, he thought, all! But how?

If he surrendered to the almost irresistible lure of the Star Gate and threw himself in, then WolfStar also wanted to know he could come back. Return and flaunt his new-found power and knowledge. Revel in it. Use it. Of what use was power if it could not be used in life?

WolfStar was destined for legendary greatness. He knew it.

He shifted on the lip of the Star Gate and his mouth twisted in anger and frustration. What more could he do?

Over the past weeks he had selected the most powerful of the young Enchanters among the Icarii and had thrown them through the Star Gate. Come back, he had ordered, with the secrets of the universe in your hand. Share them with me. Tell me how I can step through the Star Gate and yet come back.

They were young, and their lives could be wasted, if waste it was.

But none had returned, and WolfStar was consumed with rage. How was he to learn the secrets and mysteries of the Star Gate, of the very universe itself, if they did not come back? Why did they refuse to come back?

Their weakness, their lack of courage, and their consummate failure meant that the mysteries of the stars were denied WolfStar until after his death. No, no, no … he could not countenance that. He couldn’t!

“WolfStar?”

WolfStar’s body stiffened and he barely restrained himself from letting his power bolt in anger about the chamber. “My title is Talon, CloudBurst. I command that you use it.”

“Brother, you must stop this madness. Nothing gives you the right to murder so many –”

“Murder?” WolfStar leaped down from the lip of the Gate and grasped his brother’s hair, wrenching CloudBurst’s head back. “Murder? They are adventurers, CloudBurst, and they have a duty to their Talon. And they are doing that duty badly!”

“WolfStar –”

“My title is Talon!” WolfStar screamed and twisted CloudBurst’s head until the birdman’s neck creaked and his face contorted in agony.

“Talon,” CloudBurst whispered, and WolfStar’s grip loosened. “Talon, you are throwing these children to their deaths. How many lives have been wasted now? Two hundred? More, Talon, more!”

“They would not die if they crawled back through the Star Gate. They have wasted themselves, not I. They have failed. Their blame, not mine.”

“No-one has ever come back through the –”

“That is not to say no-one can, CloudBurst.” WolfStar finally let CloudBurst go and stood back. “Perhaps they are not strong enough. I need young Enchanters of powerful blood. Very powerful.” His eyes locked with CloudBurst’s.

“No!” CloudBurst sank to his knees, quivering hands outstretched in appeal. “No! I beg you. Not –”

“Bring me your daughter, CloudBurst. StarGrace has SunSoar power. Part of her shares my blood. Perhaps she will succeed where others have failed.”

“No! WolfStar, I cannot –”

“I am Talon,” WolfStar hissed. “I am WolfStar SunSoar, and I command you! Obey me!”

But StarGrace did not return, either. WolfStar muttered instructions and orders to the terrified, sobbing sixteen-year-old girl as he seized her by her wings and hurled her into the Star Gate. But like all the others, she only cartwheeled into the pit of the universe to vanish completely. WolfStar stood at the lip of the Star Gate for two full days, watching and waiting, taking neither food nor drink, before he cursed StarGrace for all eternity for her weakness and failure and stepped back. He jumped, startled.

“You are tired, my husband. Will you not take some rest?”

StarLaughter stepped forward from the shadows of the arches. “Come with me, my love, and let me warm and soothe you to sleep.”

WolfStar reached out and smoothed his wife’s dark hair back from her face. She was his first cousin, close SunSoar blood, and second only to him in Enchanter power. So powerful.

Perhaps too powerful. For months now WolfStar had good reason to suspect StarLaughter plotted against him, plotted to take the title of Talon for herself.

WolfStar almost laughed. She must be mad to think she could wrest power from him.

He caressed her cheek, his fingers gentle, and StarLaughter forced herself to smile, even though her love for her husband was long dead.

WolfStar leaned forward and kissed her softly, allowing his hand to slide down over her body until he felt the energy throbbing through her swollen belly. His son, and so powerful, so powerful … did his unborn son conspire with StarLaughter? Was their son the reason she thought she could best him?

WolfStar’s hand stilled. His son. Even unborn he wielded more power than any other Enchanter he’d sent through the Star Gate. His son.

Perhaps he could succeed … his son. And it would certainly solve the more immediate problem of StarLaughter’s treachery.

StarLaughter’s hands closed over his and wrenched it away from her body.

No! she screamed through his mind.

“I need to know, beloved,” WolfStar whispered. “I need to know if I can come back. I need someone to show me the way. Who better than our son?”

“You would throw a newborn infant through? You would murder our son?”

StarLaughter took a step back. The birth was only weeks away – how far could she get in that time? Far enough to save her son’s life? Far enough to save her own life? What did WolfStar know? How much could he know?

“Too much!” WolfStar cried, and leaped forward and grabbed her. “Consider yourself a fit sacrifice for your son, StarLaughter. Your body will protect him from the ravages of passage through the Gate, my lovely. Will you not do this for our son? He will come back, I am sure of it.”

And once he does, WolfStar thought, I shall divest him of his knowledge and then of his life.

Now so terrified she could not even speak with the mind voice, StarLaughter shook her head in denial, her eyes huge and round, her hands clasped protectively over her belly.

“WolfStar, not your wife! Not StarLaughter!” CloudBurst stepped into the chamber, accompanied by several Crest-Leaders from the Icarii Strike Force.

WolfStar growled in fury and lashed out with his power, pinning them to the floor. “Anyone I choose … anyone!”

He dragged StarLaughter across to the Star Gate. In her extremity of fear she found her voice and screamed as she felt her legs touch the low wall surrounding the Star Gate. “No! WolfStar! No! No! No!”

It was the last thing anyone heard from StarLaughter for a very, very long time.

Five days later CloudBurst’s remorse and grief gave him the courage to plunge the twin-bladed knife into WolfStar’s back in the centre of the Icarii Assembly on the Island of Mist and Memory.

He gave one sobbing, hiccuping sigh as WolfStar sank to the mosaic floor, and then he relaxed. It was over. The horror was finally over.

There was no grief among the peoples of Tencendor when WolfStar SunSoar’s body was laid to rest in his hastily constructed Barrow above the Chamber of the Star Gate. With WolfStar dead, entombed, and on his own way through the Star Gate, Tencendor was at last safe from his madness.

Four thousand years passed. Tencendor was riven apart by the Seneschal and then restored by the StarMan, Axis SunSoar. The Icarii and the Avar returned to the southern lands, and the Star Gods, Axis and Azhure among them, were free to roam as they willed. Even though WolfStar had managed to come back through the Star Gate, he vanished once Axis had won his struggle with Gorgrael. Control of Tencendor, and the Throne of the Stars itself, passed from Axis to his son and heir, Caelum. Tencendor waxed bright and strong under the House of the Stars. All was well.

1 West and North

His wing-span as wide as a man was tall, the speckled blue eagle floated high in the sky above the silvery waters of Grail Lake. The day was calm and warm, the thermals inviting, but for the moment the eagle resisted climbing any higher. He tilted his head slightly, his predatory gaze undimmed by his vast age, taking in the pink and cream stone walls and the gold- and silver-plated roofs of the city of Carlon. The eagle’s gaze was only casual, for it was almost noon, and the streets so busy that all rodents would have secreted themselves deep in their lairs many hours previously. The eagle was not particularly concerned. He had feasted well on fish earlier, and now he tilted his wings, sweeping over the white-walled seven-sided tower of Spiredore.

The power emanating from the tower vibrated the eagle’s wings pleasantly, and made the old bird reflect momentarily on the changes in this land over his lifetime. When he had been newly feathered and only just able to stay aloft, he’d flown over this same lake and tower with the eagle who had fathered him. Then the tower had been still and silent, and the land treeless. Men had scurried below, axes in their hands and the Plough God Artor in their hearts. Ice had invaded from the north and Gryphon – creatures whom even eagles feared – had darkened the skies. But all that had changed. A great battle had been fought in the icy tundra far to the north, the ice had retreated and the Gryphon had disappeared from the thermals. In the west, enchanted forests had reached for the sky, and the white tower below had reverberated with power and song. The armies that had crawled about the land in destructive, serpentine trails disbanded, and now the peoples of this enchanted land – those who called themselves human, Icarii and Avar – shared their lives shoulder to shoulder in apparent harmony.

Contented, knowing that the score of chicks he had raised over his lifetime would have nothing more to fear than the anger of a sudden storm, the eagle tipped his wings and spiralled higher and higher until he was no more than a distant speck in the sky.

Leagh stood at the open windows of her apartments in the north wing of the Prince of the West’s palace in Carlon, watching the eagle fade from sight. Sighing, for watching the bird had calmed the ache in her heart, she dropped her gaze slightly to the ancient Icarii palace that loomed above the entire city. It seemed to Leagh that the palace looked lonely and sad in the bright sunshine. And so it should, she thought, for StarSon Caelum so rarely leaves Sigholt now that he only uses his palace in Carlon every three or four years.

Leagh did not covet the magnificent Icarii palace. Her older brother Askam’s palace was spacious and elegant, and grand enough for Leagh, who was a woman of conservative tastes and temperate habits. She dropped her eyes yet further, down to the gently lapping waters of the lake. A gentle easterly breeze blew across the waves, lifting the glossy nut-brown hair from her brow and sweeping it back over her shoulders in tumbling waves. Leagh had the dark blue eyes of her mother, Cazna, but had inherited her hair, good looks and calm temperament from her father, Belial. She had loved her father dearly, and still missed him, even though he’d been dead a decade. He’d been her best friend when she was growing up, and to lose him when she’d been sixteen had been a cruel blow.

“Stop it!” she murmured to herself. “Why heap yet more sadness and loneliness on your heart?”

Gods, why could she not have been born a simple peasant girl rather than a princess? Surely peasant women had more luck in following their hearts! Here she was at twenty-six, all but locked into her brother’s palace, when most women her age were married with toddlers clinging to their skirts.

Leagh turned back into the chamber, and sat at her work table. It was littered with scraps of silk and pieces of embroidery that she had convinced herself she would one day sew into a waistcoat for the man she loved – but when everyone around her apparently conspired to keep them as far apart as possible, what was the point? Would she ever have the chance to give it to him? Her fingers wandered aimlessly among several scraps, turning them over and about as if in an attempt to form a pattern, but Leagh’s thoughts were now so far distant that she did not even see what her fingers were doing.

Leagh’s only wish in life was to marry the man she loved – Zared, Prince of the North, son of Rivkah and Magariz. Yet it would have been easier for me, she thought wryly, if I’d fallen in love with a common carter.

The problem was not that Zared did not love her, for he did, and with a quiet passion that sometimes left her trembling when she caught his eyes across a banquet table. Yet how long was it since they’d had the chance to share even a glance? A year? More like two, she thought miserably, and had to struggle to contain her tears. More like two.

Nay, the problem was not only that Zared and she loved too well, but that a marriage between them was fraught with so many potential political problems that her brother, Askam, had yet to agree to it. (Though doubtless he would have let her marry a carter long ago!) Leagh loved her brother dearly, but he tried her patience – and gave her long, sleepless nights – with his continued reluctance to grant approval of the marriage.

Leagh’s eyes slowly cleared, and she picked up a star-shaped piece of golden silk and turned it slowly over and over in her hands. Power in the western and northern territories of Tencendor was delicately balanced between their two respective princes, Askam and Zared. Should she marry Zared, then the grave potential was there that one day West and North would be united under one prince. Askam had married eight years ago, but his wife Bethiam had yet to produce an heir. For the moment Leagh’s womb carried within it the entire inheritance of the West.

And, with its burden of responsibility and inheritance, thus did her womb entrap her.

If I were a peasant woman, Leagh suddenly thought, I would only have to bed the man of my choice and get with his child for all familial objections to our marriage to be dropped. She crushed the golden silk star into a tight ball, and tears of anger and heartache filled her eyes. Askam would not let her get within speaking distance of Zared, let alone bedding distance!

Frustrated with herself for allowing her emotions to so carry her away, Leagh smoothed out the silken patch and laid it with the others. The political problems were only the start of Askam’s objections, for Askam not only disliked Zared personally, but resented and felt threatened by Zared’s success in the North. The West encompassed much of the old Achar – the provinces of Romsdale, Avonsdale and Aldeni. Each year the lands produced rich harvests, and for decades Carlon had grown fat on the trade with the rest of Tencendor and the Corolean Empire to the far south. But despite its natural abundance, the West was riven with huge economic problems. As Prince of the West, Askam had managed to mire himself deep in debt over the past seven years. For three years he had entertained the entire eight-score strong retinue of the Corolean Ambassador while, on Caelum’s behalf, he had thrashed out an agreement for Tencendorian fishing rights in the Sea of Tyrre. When the agreement had finally been concluded, and the Ambassador and his well-fattened train once more in Coroleas, Askam had personally funded the outfit of a massive fishing fleet, only to have three-quarters of the boats lost in a devastating storm in their first season. Thinking to recoup his losses, Askam had loaned the King of Escator, a small kingdom across the Widowmaker Sea, a vast sum to refurbish the Escatorian gloam mines in return for half the profit from the sale of gloam, only to have the mines flooded in a disaster of epic proportions, and the new king – the previous having drowned in the mine itself – completely repudiate any monies his predecessor had borrowed.

These were only two of the investment disasters Askam had made over the past few years. There were a score of others, if not so large. Smaller projects had failed, other deals had fallen through after considerable cash outlay. Askam had been forced to raise taxes within the West over the past two years which, though they made but a small dent into the amount he owed, had caused hardship among farmers and traders alike. Yet who could blame Askam for the economic misfortune of the West? Sheer bad luck seemed to dog his best endeavours.

In total contrast, Zared’s North – the old province of Ichtar – had blossomed in unrivalled prosperity. In the days before Axis had reunited Tencendor, the old Ichtar had been rich, true, but it had relied mainly on its gem mines for wealth. The gem mines still produced – and a dozen more had opened in the past ten years – but Zared had also opened up vast amounts of previous wasteland for cropping and grazing. Zared had enticed the most skilled engineers to his capital of Severin, in the elbow of the Ichtar and Azle Rivers, with high wages and the promise of roomy housing and good schooling for their children. These engineers had designed, and then caused to be built, massive irrigation systems in the western and northern parts of the realm. Zared had then attracted settlers from all over Tencendor to these vast and newly watered lands by offering them generous land leases and the promise of minimal – and in some cases no – taxation for the first twenty-five years of their lease. Unlike the West, all farmers, traders and craftsmen in the North were free to dispose of their surplus as they chose. As a result, a brisk trade in furs had grown with the Ravensbundmen in the extreme north, which were then re-traded to the southern regions of Tencendor. And add to that the trade in beef, lamb, gems and grain …