Was everyone going to haul him about Tencendor by the roots of his hair?
"Caelum died a hero's death!" DragonStar said.
"How can you be sure of that?" WolfStar snapped. "Were you watching?"
"What happened?"
WolfStar chose not to respond.
DragonStar gave the Enchanter's head a wrench. "What happened?"
WolfStar growled, and grabbed at DragonStar's hand with both of his own.
DragonStar's grip did not loosen, and WolfStar could not pry him free.
"What happened?" DragonStar gave WolfStar's head such a twist that all present could hear the bones in the birdman's neck crack.
"Caelum walked into the portion of the Maze where I lay," WolfStar ground out, hate and resentment for DragonStar filling every nuance of his voice, "as if he were walking into a picnic ground.
He had a stupid, vacant smile on his face."
He was already walking through the Field of Flowers, thought DragonStar, and the smile he had on his face must have been beauteous, not stupid. "And then?"
"Then Qeteb rode his black nightmare up behind Caelum, and Caelum turned."
"And?"
"And Qeteb ran his sword through Caelum — Gods! The boy reached out and grabbed the blade as it sliced into him!"
DragonStar stared at WolfStar. There was something else ... something that WolfStar was not deliberately holding back but thought so unimportant as not worth the relation.
"And what else?" DragonStar said, his tone compelling.
WolfStar sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. "Caelum said something to the Demon that drove him crazy."
"What?"
"He said, 'Oh, how I do love you'."
DragonStar still stared at WolfStar, but his eyes were far, far away. Caelum must have turned in the Field of Flowers and seen RiverStar. He had spoken to her, not Qeteb.
But what he'd said had driven the Demon ... "crazy"?
DragonStar refocussed his eyes on WolfStar. "I apologise for what I am about to do to you," he said, "but methinks you have used it on many a soul before now."
And DragonStar forced the memory of Caelum's death up from WolfStar's subconscious into the full light of consciousness.
Caelum, turning, smiling, holding out his hand. "Oh, how I do love you."
And Qeteb going crazy with ... what? Hate?
Or ... fear?
"For thousands of years you have roamed about doing nothing but mischief in the name of ultimate good," DragonStar said, "but finally I think you may have done this land a service. Come on, stand up."
DragonStar got to his feet, and — once again — WolfStar found himself being hauled upwards by his hair.
He shouted with rage and squirmed about, but DragonStar's grip did not loosen.
DragonStar turned to DareWing. He was annoyed with the birdman for leaving the Field of Flowers, but for the moment that annoyance could wait. "None of the Demons are about, and I think this place safe enough for the time being. Watch Belaguez and the Alaunt for me, will you? I think I know just the place for WolfStar ... if it can bear the shock."
And, so saying, DragonStar unsheathed the lily sword, drew his rectangle of light, and stepped through Spiredore as quickly as he could into Sanctuary, dragging WolfStar with him.
Chapter 16
Fischer
DragonStar moved briskly through Spiredore — gods alone knew how dangerous it was getting now — while dragging WolfStar behind him. The birdman was muttering something incoherently about StarLaughter and the tower and his hair, but DragonStar paid him no heed.
His mind was full of jumbled thoughts and images, and they were all to do with Caelum's smiling, love-filled face, and the mystery of the Enchanted Song Book, which, somewhat unbelievably, for he had not been aware of it for some time, DragonStar still clutched under his free arm.
Suddenly they were tumbling through the doorway of light onto the approach to Sanctuary, and DragonStar briefly wondered how he'd managed it with his hands full of the Song Book and WolfStar.
"Where are we?" WolfStar gasped, rubbing his head as DragonStar finally let him go.
"Somewhere I imagine you thought you'd never see," DragonStar said. "Somewhere safe.
Sanctuary."
