Drago pushed, but with no success. He frowned, his fingers tapping gently against the door. On the wall by the door was a recessed rectangular section, filled with nine slightly raised knobs of the same cool, grey material as door and corridor.
Drago stared at them, then slowly raised his hand and rested his fingers on the raised knobs.
Instantly his mind flooded with an extraordinary vision.
Two old men, one short and squat, the other tall and thin, had marched down this very corridor once.
Drago’s frown deepened. Who? One of the men turned and spoke to his companion, and Drago recognised the voice instantly. They were the Sentinels, Ogden and Veremund, and this was the doorway by which they had accessed the Repository.
He watched as the vision unwound itself.
The Sentinels walked to the spot he now stood, and the tall one, Veremund, lifted his hand and placed it as Drago now had his placed.
Then he had hummed a fragment of melody, and his fingers had danced accordingly.
The memory faded, although the short melody lingered; it was a part of the same tune the Sentinels had taught him before he’d been dragged back through the Star Gate.
Drago stood, almost as if in a trance, replaying the vision over and over. Then, in a flash of inspiration, Drago realised that Veremund had transferred the melody into a pattern, and had then transferred the pattern onto the raised knobs.
Drago ran the tune through his head, translating it from melody to pattern almost without thought. He transferred the pattern onto the rows of knobs with his fingers.
Instantly the door swung inwards with a soft hiss.
The lizard gave a soft cry and scampered through.
But Drago stood still, his head bowed, thinking. Something very, very important had just happened, and he struggled to understand it. He … he …
“Damn it!” Drago whispered. “What did I just do?”
He had used the pattern of melody to accomplish a purpose.
Is that not what Icarii Enchanters did?
And yet there was no Star Dance, no power, no magic. No enchantment left.
Drago shuddered, and the grip of his left hand tightened about his staff. He had not only opened a door, he had also just been taught something.
Ah! Frustrated, feeling that the answer danced just beyond the reaches of his mind, Drago put the problem to one side and stepped through the door.
It swung shut behind him.
Drago paid it no heed. Before him stretched yet another corridor, similar to the last with the pattern of feathered circles on the walls, but curving into a left-hand bend some twenty paces ahead.
Beyond the bend the corridor branched into two. Drago took the left-hand fork without hesitation and then, when it again branched, took the right-hand fork. It led into a flight of steep steps leading to a higher level, and Drago grinned as he imagined how the two Sentinels would have grumbled about climbing them. Somehow, their presence was still very much here.
There was a large rectangular room at the top of the steps. The walls were literally smothered with the feather-backed circles. Metallic racks stood in three ranks, almost empty, save for half a dozen glass jars.
They were empty.
Drago looked about. There were three doors, rectangular now, in the far wall, each of them open. Which one?
From the door on the far right came the faint hum of vast power, but Drago understood he should not take that one.
He walked through the middle doorway instead. Before him stretched yet another corridor, but very short, and ending in yet another doorway through which … through which Drago thought he could see stars.
Stars?
Hesitant now, Drago walked down the corridor to the door, took a deep breath, and stepped through.
He stood in a strange room. The walls, ceiling, benches and even parts of the floor were covered with metal plates, and these plates were studded with knobs and bright jewel-like lights. Before him were the high backs of several chairs, facing enormous windows that looked out upon the universe.
One of the chairs before him swivelled, revealing a silver-haired man in its depths. He wore a uniform made of a leathery black material; gold braid hung at his shoulders and encircled the cuffs of his sleeves, and in his first glance Drago saw a black, peaked cap, gold braid about its brim, sitting on the bench behind him.
But it was the man’s face underneath his silvery hair which riveted Drago’s attention.
It was lined with care … and more. Agonising pain had scored a network of deep lines into the man’s skin. His right hand clenched spasmodically in the tunic over his chest, and he breathed erratically, great deep breaths that tore through his throat.
A slight movement distracted Drago’s attention momentarily. The blue-feathered lizard sat to one side under an empty chair, his black eyes unblinking on the man in the chair.
“Drago,” said the man, and Drago looked back to him.
“You are Faraday’s Noah,” he said, and then stepped forward to touch Noah’s shoulder. “What is wrong?”
Noah’s mouth twisted. “I am suffering the ill-effects of redundancy,” he said. “No, no, that is wrong. I am simply being recycled.”
“I don’t understand,” Drago said. He touched Noah’s shoulder again, leaving his hand resting there this time. “What can I do to help?”
Noah lifted his own hand to pat Drago’s. “First of all, you can sit down. Then you can listen and accept.”
“I meant,” Drago said softly, “what can I do to aid you?”
“Me?” Noah raised tortured brown eyes and looked into Drago’s violet gaze. “You can do nothing to help me. I am dying. After all this time, I am finally, finally dying.”
Then he grunted with pain, doubling over in the chair.
Drago dropped his staff and grabbed him, wanting to help, but not knowing what to do. In the end he just knelt by the chair and held Noah, trying to give some measure of comfort.
Noah managed to straighten. His face was slick with sweat.
“We have all been waiting too long,” he whispered harshly, “for me to die before I tell you what you must know.”
“All?” Drago said.
Noah lifted a trembling hand and pointed to the window filled with the tens of thousands of stars beyond.
“All of us,” he repeated. “The Stars.”
14 In the Chamber of the Enemy
Noah looked at one of the empty chairs, as if considering asking Drago to sit in it, then gave a tired sigh and took Drago’s hand in his. He glanced at the newly-healed scar on Drago’s neck, but said nothing.
Drago settled on the floor, moving the staff to one side as the lizard crept over and curled up against his legs.
“Tell me,” Drago said, and Noah nodded, raised his head, and searched the panels under the window.
“Will you press the copper knob on the panel?” Noah asked, and Drago leaned over, hesitated, then firmly pressed a glowing knob.
Instantly the view from the forward window changed. The stars disappeared, and Drago found himself looking out on a world filled with mountains and valleys, plains and oceans.
He