As
Orr partly explained to Azhure in BattleAxe, the Icarii,
as the Charonites and the human race of Tencendor, the Acharites,
were all born of the ancient Enchantress. She had three sons,
fathered by the gods only alone knew, and of those three sons
she favoured only the younger two. To them she whispered some
of her myriad secrets, while the eldest she cast from her
door and turned her back on his pleas. This eldest wandered
desolate into the land, which he eventually desolated to assuage
his grief at his mother's rejection, while his younger brothers
stayed many more years at the Enchantress' knee ... learning
... learning ... learning ...
"You
have a duty," she told her middle son, "to wander and watch."
He nodded, and thought he understood.
"You
have a duty," she told her youngest son, "to dance your delight
to the stars." And he too nodded, thinking he understood.
When
the Enchantress died, her hair silvered but her face untouched
by weariness, her two younger made their way into the world.
The middle brother was reflective, and haunted shadows, thinking
there to catch a glimpse of the unknowable. Eventually his
eyes turned downwards to the chasms that led into the earth,
and there he eventually made his way.
The
youngest brother was wide of smile and bright of curiosity.
He clutched in his hand his mother's ring, that which would
give birth to all of the Enchanter's rings and which would
eventually find its way home to Azhure's hand, and it impelled
him to cast his eye to the high places, and there he eventually
climbed.
All
three brothers proliferated. They took to themselves many
wives from among the humanoid races that populated the land,
and these wives bore them many children. These children took
to themselves husbands and wives, and they likewise bred many
children. Within a thousand years the plains and the chasms
and the mountains rang with the voices of the brother races:
Mankind, the Acharites, who followed their cattle through
dusty plain trails and built themselves houses of brick; the
Charonites, who explored the misty waterways beneath the trails
and took the houses others had left behind; and the Icarii,
beloved of the gods, who climbed the crags and cried out to
the stars and built themselves houses of music and mystery.
Then,
the Icarii did not have wings.
The
story of how the Icarii found their wings is rightly the love
story of EverHeart and CrimsonStar. CrimsonStar was an Enchanter
unparalled in the history of the Icarii, but his love for
the stars and for the Star Dance paled into insignificance
beside the love he bore his wife, EverHeart. CrimsonStar and
EverHeart lived in the lower ranges of the Icescarp Alps.
Then, so long before the Wars of the Axe, the Icarii populated
most of the mountain ranges of Tencendor, most living in the
Minaret Peaks (those peaks the Acharites would later call
the Bracken Ranges). But CrimsonStar and EverHeart were newly
married and preferred to enjoy the relative isolation of the
Icescarp Alps. Talon Spike was only just being opened up and
hollowed out, and the few dozen Icarii within their immediate
vicinity were, truth to tell, a few dozen too many for CrimsonStar
and EverHeart.
They
did what they could to keep themselves distant, climbing frightening
precipes to achieve privacy to indulge their frequent cravings
for love, clinging to razorbacked crags to evade curious eyes
and to allow the winds of thrill and danger to deepen their
passion.
They
were in love and they were young, and so they were indulged
by their elders. Time enough, in fifty years or so, for them
to descend from the heights of newly-married explorations.
But
fifty years they did not have. Eight years after they were
married, when they had barely recovered from the breathless
passion of their initial consummation, EverHeart fell.
She
fell from a peak so high even the winds were frightened to
assail it. She fell so far she was swallowed by the clouds
that broiled about the knees of the mountain.
She
fell so fast even CrimsonStar's scream could not follow her.
It
took him three days to find her, and when he did, he thought
he had found a corpse. She lay broken, unmoving, her spilt
blood frozen in crazy patterns across the rocks that cradled
her. CrimsonStar's tears felt as if they, too, were freezing
into solid grief as they trailed down his cheeks. He touched
his wife, but she did not move, and her flesh had the solidness
of rock.
Frozen.
He
wailed, then screamed, then wrenched his wife from her resting
place, tearing her skin where it had frozen to the surface
of the rocks. He cuddled her close, trying to warm her, then
realised through his grief that somewhere deep within EverHeart,
her courageous heart, her ever heart, still thudded. Slowly,
achingly slowly, but still it thudded.
He
carried her back to their home, and there he cared for her,
bringing to her side all the Healers of the Icarii people,
and even calling to her side Banes from the distant forests.
They restored her warmth, and the colour to her cheeks. They
restored the brightness of her eye, and even the gloss of
her golden hair. They restored the flex to her arms and the
suppleness to her long white fingers.
But
they could not restore movement or usefulness to her shattered
legs, and they could not restore the laughter to her face.
Everheart
was condemned to lie useless in her bed, her lower body anchoring
her to immobility, its flesh a drain on the resources of her
upper body and, more importantly, on her spirit.
At
CrimsonStar's request, the Icarii Healers and the Avar Banes
left. They farewelled the pair as best they could, certain
that EverHeart would not survive the year, and even more certain
CrimsonStar would not survive his wife's inevitable death.
For
seven months CrimsonStar held EverHeart's hand, and sang to
her, and soothed her as best he could. He fed her and washed
her and ministered to her needs. He lived only to see her
smile, and to hear her tell him she was content.
But
EverHeart could do neither of these things without lying,
and this she would not do.
One
night, late into the darkness, EverHeart asked CrimsonStar
to kill her. It was a brutal request, but EverHeart was too
tired of life to phrase it more politely.
"I
cannot," CrimsonStar said, and turned his head aside.
"Then
build me wings to fly," Everheart said, bitterness twisting
her voice, "that I may escape these useless legs and this
prison-bed."
CrimsonStar
looked at her. "My lovely, I cannot ..."
"Then
kill me."
CrimsonStar
crept away, not wishing EverHeart to see the depth of his
distress. Knowing she knew it anyway.
He
climbed to the crag from which EverHeart had fallen so many
months before. He had no intention of throwing himself from
the peak, but some instinct told him that he might find comfort
at the same point where he and she had lost so much of their
lives. He sat down in a sheltered crevice, and watched the
stars filter their way across the night sky.
Tears
ran down his face. Everheart had given him an impossible request
... and if he didn't help her die now, then what agony of
wasting would she go through over the next few months until
she died of unaided causes?
"You
should not weep so at this altitude," a soft voice said, "for
your tears will freeze to your face and leaved your cheeks
marred with black ice."
CrimsonStar
jerked his head up.
A
sparrow hopped into the crevice, its feathers ruffled out
against the cold.
CrimsonStar
was so stunned he could not speak.
"I
have been disappointed in you, my son," the sparrow continued,
and hopped onto CrimsonStar's knee so he could the better
look the Icarii man in the eye.
"Disappointed?"
CrimsonStar managed, but he straightened his shoulders and
brushed the tears from his eyes. Who was this sparrow to so
chastise him?
"I
am your father, CrimsonStar."
"No
... no ... my father is FellowStar ... alive and well ..."
The
sparrow tipped its head to one side, its eyes angry yet sadly
tolerant of his wayward child. "Do you not understand, CrimsonStar?
I am the father of the Icarii race."
CrimsonStar
could do nothing but stare at the sparrow.
"I
lay with the Enchantress, and she waxed great with our child.
Her third and last son for her life ... and my fourth son
that spring. It was a good spring for me that year."
"I
... I did not know ..."
"Few
knew who the Enchantress took to her bed, child. The fathers
of her elder sons are unknown to me. And I ... I should not
have told you of my role in your generation, save that I could
not bear your sadness and that of EverHeart's. Still," the
sparrow sighed, "I had no choice, for you have proved such
a disappointment, and all fathers reserve their right to chastise
and redirect their children."
CrimsonStar
slowly shook his head from side to side, almost unable to
comprehend that this sparrow (a sparrow!) was the father
of the proud Icarii race.
"Listen
to me, CrimsonStar. I shall tell you of a great joy and then
I shall curse you, because you must pay for the privilege
of hearing my advice - "
"No
... I have been cursed enough."
"You
have no choice, my son. Now ... watch."
And
the sparrow fluttered his wings, and rose a handspan above
CrimsonStar's knee before settling gently down again. "Why
have you no wings, CrimsonStar?"
"Wings
...?"
"Wings,
CrimsonStar. You are my son, and yet you refuse to wear your
heritage."
"I
..."
"Do
you not sing the Flight Song to your children as they lie
nesting in their shells?"
"Flight
Song ...?"
The
sparrow spat in disgust. "Listen ." And he trilled a simple
song, paused, then trilled it again. "Repeat it."
His
suprise giving way to a small thrill of excitement, CrimsonStar
repeated the tune, stumbling over one or two of the phrases,
but correcting himself instantly.
The
sparrow laughed. "You are my son, CrimsonStar! Now
go home and lay beside EverHeart and sing her the Song. Run
your hands down her back, rub, probe, encourage, and soon
she shall have movement again. Soon she will soar free from
her prison-bed and let the sky ring with her laughter. Teach
her the Song, and let her minister to you as well. And when
she swells with your child, then place your hands on her belly
and sing to the child what I have taught you. It is my gift
to my children, CrimsonStar."
"Thank
-"
"Do
not thank me, CrimsonStar. Not until after the pain has faded,
for you are both late in age to spread your wings. Besides,
for the knowledge I have imparted and the gift I have given
I must curse you."
CrimsonStar
waited, sure the curse would match the gift.
"Oh,
it will, it will, CrimsonStar. Listen to me now. You and Everheart
will be the first among the Icarii to spread your wings and
fly into the heavens. But for this there is a price. I name
your family SunSoar, a regal name, for your feathered backs
must bear the burden of the sins of the Icarii. Wait ... there
is more. As you and EverHeart can consider no other love save
that you bear for the other, so no SunSoar will love beyond
the SunSoar blood. Never will you and yours find happiness
save in each other's arms. Do you understand?"
CrimsonStar
nodded soberly, considering the implications.
"Then
go down to your wife, CrimsonStar. And then to your people
... and tell them the heavens wait."
