A man was riding down the slope of the gully towards her. An ordinary man with a pitiful sword in his hand and riding a more than ordinary brown mare who would look happier pulling a milk cart than riding into the midst of a dangerous revenging.

StarLaughter tipped back her head and let her laughter wash over the rising sun, extending her arms and hands in rapturous joy.

WolfStar was dead. WolfStar was dead!

He could harm her no more, he could humiliate her no more, and StarLaughter hoped he was currently screaming in agony within the deepest firepits of the AfterLife.

"You are dead, WolfStar," she whispered, "and I am alive, I have won!"

She turned her head and sighed irritably as the man pulled his mare to a halt some two or three paces away. Some part of her mind recognised him as the Axis StarMan she'd taunted in the tunnel under the Fortress Ranges, but in this, her moment of triumph, she cared little for who or what he was.

He was, after all, pointless.

"WolfStar made many errors in his life," Axis remarked in a wooden tone, "but the greatest of all was that he didn't tear your head from your neck before he threw you into the Star Gate."

"Get out of here," StarLaughter said. "This is none of your business."

None of my business? You murdered my daughter!

Axis stared at StarLaughter, his gaze horribly intense.

"Get out of here!" StarLaughter yelled, waving an arm. "Don't think to sit on that pathetic nag and share my triumph!"

"Triumph?" Axis said softly. "StarLaughter, you have made an awful mistake."

StarLaughter narrowed her eyes, thinking. "Ah! The Zenith-harlot was your daughter, was she?

Well, don't think to revenge yourself on me for her death. She deserved to die."

Controlling himself at that moment was one of the hardest things Axis had been forced to do in a long, long while. "For my daughter's death," he said, "you deserve an eternal hell. She did not deserve to die —"

"WolfStar threw me aside for her! She deserved every last agony she suffered!"

"You demented witch!" Axis screamed, half-rising from the saddle. "There was no reason at all for her death!"

"I just told you why she had to —" StarLaughter stopped abruptly. What had he meant, "an awful mistake"?

Axis took a hard, deep breath, forcing each word out through clenched teeth. "My daughter's death was pointless, as was WolfStar's — although I for one am glad he is finally dead — because WolfStar did not love Zenith at all. He loved you."

"What? "

"WolfStar was only using Zenith to cause dissension within my family. He wanted power back, and thought Zenith the best way to get it." Axis had no idea how true his words were, he only thought they provided a plausible reason for WolfStar's actions.

StarLaughter did not know whether to laugh at the man, or to succumb to utter despair. She did not want to believe him!

But his words contained a dreadful, frightful ring of truth.

She stepped close to the horse and put a shaking hand on Axis' thigh. "Tell me!"

"WolfStar wanted to control DragonStar, and he wanted to use Zenith to manipulate him." Axis gave a harsh bark of laughter. "He chose poorly. He should have picked Faraday. Stars above! Hasn't every other ambitious bastard in this land tried to use her at one time or the other?"

StarLaughter frowned, trying to work it out. "But —"

"He loved you. He would have used Zenith, then thrown her aside. You were always foremost in his thoughts."

And always with a curse attached to your name, Axis thought, but this he did not say.

"No! No! I cannot believe you! Didn't he curse me foully when I appeared before him in your convoy? Didn't he repudiate me completely? Didn't he —"

"What else did you expect him to do, StarLaughter? He was hardly going to throw Zenith aside when all his plans were coming to fruition. I expect he thought you would have understood that."

StarLaughter tried very, very hard to deny what Axis was saying, but in her twisted mind it all made sense. WolfStar would certainly have wanted to control DragonStar ... and, if he'd known that DragonStar had slept with his beloved wife, would have wanted to hurt him as much as possible. No wonder he'd picked Zenith to toy with! And now StarLaughter could understand why WolfStar had said what he had ... and why he'd behaved as he had when confronted with StarLaughter with a rope wrapped about Zenith's neck.

StarLaughter, had she been in WolfStar's place, would have acted exactly the same way.

Somewhere deep within StarLaughter a small voice said that if WolfStar had truly loved her, and had desired Zenith only for her usefulness, then he would have told StarLaughter then and there that he loved only her truly, and that Zenith was a mere pawn for his ambitions.

But he couldn't, could he, because StarDrifter had been there also, and WolfStar could not have admitted his true motives in front of him.

Yes!

No! her mind screamed back. I have killed him! I have killed him!

Axis smiled in grim, determined satisfaction. "You have made an awful mistake, haven't you?"

StarLaughter dropped her hand from Axis' thigh and clasped both hands against her breast, her fingers opening and closing amid the folds of her gown. Her mouth went slack in horror.

"I have lost him!" she eventually whispered. "Lost him forever!"

"Not necessarily," Axis said, and StarLaughter missed entirely the hatred and revenge filling his voice.

"No?" Again StarLaughter grabbed at Axis — in sudden, bright hope now, rather than anxiety.

"No?"

"No. Your and WolfStar's love is a destined thing —"

"Yes! Yes!"

"— and destiny can never be denied."

"Oh! How right you are!" StarLaughter's face was now suffused with joyous hope.

"I am sure," Axis said, very quietly, and emphasising every word, "that Wolf Star waits for you just the other side of the Gate of Death."

"He does?"

"Oh, aye. Waits for you to join him so that you can enjoy a wonderful eternity in the Field of Flowers together."