"Where did the Alaunt come from, Azhure?" he asked.

Azhure paused in her bandaging. "The Alaunt? When Ogden, Veremund, Rivkah and I crossed the WildDog Plains they surrounded us one night. We thought they would attack, but instead they bound themselves to me. They have proved good companions."

MorningStar and StarDrifter glanced at each other. WolfStar's hounds? To the woman who carried his bow?

MorningStar also knew the attraction Azhure had for both StarDrifter and Axis, and wondered further.

The GateKeeper f f - ^ -yo-one returns from the dead!" cried Orr. "WolfStar did!" Axis retorted. "Will you help me with this or not?"

"You could kill yourself if you attempt to do this," Orr said, regaining composure. "You do not know the ways."

" can read the ring," Axis said quietly. "The ring will show me the way. I have a purpose. It will show me the Song."

Orr shook his head. "There is not a Song for every purpose, I told you that.

You said you promised FreeFall you would bring him back. When? Under what circumstances?"

Axis related how FreeFall had died on the rooftop of the Keep at Gorkenfort, killed by Borneheld's traitorous sword. "As he collapsed in my arms, FreeFall told me to seek out StarDrifter. Then he said something strange. He said, 'The Ferryman owes you, Axis. Learn the secrets and the mysteries of the waterways and bring me home! I will wait at the Gate. Bring me home to EvenSong!

Promise!' "

"EvenSong?" Orr queried.

"FreeFall's cousin and lover. And my sister. They were to have married."

Orr repressed a smile. "Ah yes, I had forgotten the SunSoar attraction each to the other. And you promised to do this?"

Axis nodded. "He was dying, and he was dying on my account."

"Did you know to what he referred?" "No. I had not met my father then, and I was only groping at the very edges of my powers. I had no idea what the Gate was, or the waterways." He paused. "Even now I do not quite know what FreeFall meant by 'the Gate'. Did he mean the Star Gate here?"

Axis and Orr stood close to one of the archways of the Chamber of the Star Gate, near where they had originally entered.

Orr folded his arms inside his cloak and stood deep in thought for long minutes. Just as Axis was about to speak again, Orr raised his head. His violet eyes were almost completely drained of colour and were now dead, soulless.

"FreeFall should not have known of the Gate. No Icarii, Enchanter or not, knows of the Gate. No-one. Explain, Axis, how FreeFall could have known about it." His voice was as cold and colourless as his eyes.

Axis was unsure what to say. Why was Orr so upset? "FreeFall spoke those words with his last breath, Orr." Axis' own voice slowed and he returned the Ferryman's stare without blinking. "Perhaps his soul already stood before this 'Gate'. If you want an explanation then that is the only one I can give you.

FreeFall knew what the Gate was because he already stood before it."

Orr nodded. "It is the only explanation." He sighed, and the violet slowly started to filter back into his eyes. "And you promised, not knowing what it was you promised. Axis," Orr took Axis' arm, and led him through the archway and down the dim corridor towards the boat. "The Gate is one of the deepest mysteries that the Charonites know of, if not the deepest. If I take you there, you must promise never, never" he almost spat the word, "to tell another living soul, not even family."

Axis steadied the boat as Orr stepped in. "I promise," he said, and climbed in behind Orr, settling himself in the prow of the boat.

"Hmm." The Ferryman raised his hood, something Axis had never seen him do. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes."

Orr arranged his cloak neatly. "Well, I can take you to the Gate, Axis SunSoar, and well might FreeFall wait there for you. But you will have to convince the GateKeeper. She is the only one who can free a soul back to life - and I have never known her to do it yet. Now, speak only when I tell you to, and touch nothing."

The boat slowly started to move, and for a while they passed along normal waterways. The stars sparkled within the green water, and the smooth tunnel walls alternated with great grey caverns as they floated along. But suddenly, so suddenly he was not aware of the transition, Axis realised that they were moving across a vast expanse of dull black water -no stars shone within its depths. There were no walls, no roof at all that Axis could see. They just drifted through a vast sea of blackness, above and below, only the sound of the boat skimming through the water reassuring Axis that they still sailed rather than flew.

A strange pale shape off one side of the boat caught Axis' eye. It was a weeping young woman, carrying a tiny baby. Both the woman and the baby were mist-like, insubstantial, gliding only a handspan above the water. Behind the woman came another shape, but Axis could not see whether it was male or female.

"We travel the River of Death," Orr said. "If you touch the water, you will die."

Startled, Axis placed his hands firmly in his lap. He looked again at the woman and baby.

"She died in birth," Orr said, "and she cries for the life that was denied her and her baby." He paused. "On the night Gorkentown fell and Yuletide was attacked, the river was crowded with souls - Icarii, Avar, and Acharites." Axis raised his eyes in unspoken query.

"Yes, Axis. All travel the River of Death, even Skraelings. Death makes brothers and comrades of all."

Orr's eyes brightened, and he leaned forward. "Look behind you, Axis SunSoar. We approach the Gate."

Axis swivelled on his seat. They were rapidly approaching what appeared to be a large island, slightly raised towards its centre. On the top of the rise was a large rectangle of pure light, slightly wider than a normal door and twice as tall.

The next moment the boat rasped across the gravel of the shore and came to a complete halt. Beside them the woman and baby continued to glide towards the rectangle of pure light. "You must go on alone, Axis. By the Gate you will find the GateKeeper. Ask of her what you wish, but do not ask what lies through the Gate. If you do - alive or not - you will be forced through."

"Thank you, Orr. Will you wait here for me?"

"If you come back," Orr said comfortingly, "then I will be here for you."

The surface of the island was covered with loose grey gravel, and Axis had to fight to keep from losing his footing. The air was thick and heavy about him, but all he could see was the rectangle of light atop the hill, throbbing with a hypnotic power. Ahead of him the woman and baby reached the rectangle, paused briefly, then stepped through. The light pulsed for an instant, then was calm again - but still it seemed to call, hungry for more.

As he neared the crest of the hill Axis saw that a thin, dark figure sat at a table to one side of the Gate. As he drew closer the figure lifted its head from its contemplation of two shallow bowls, a faint glow emanating from each, and spoke.

"I hear footsteps."

Axis crunched to within five paces of the table and stopped. In the reflected light from the Gate he saw it was a woman who sat there, gaunt, with pale luminous skin, great black eyes sunk into her skull, and black hair left free to flow down her back. White hands rested on the table before her. She reminded Axis of Veremund.

"I ..." Axis' voice faltered and he had to clear his throat. It was very hard to speak in this place and before this woman. She did not look very pleased to see him. "I seek the GateKeeper," he finally managed, relieved that his voice emerged calm and steady despite his inner turmoil.

She considered him with her great unblinking eyes. Another soul drifted up to the Gate, paused as it looked at the woman, then passed through. As the Gate pulsed the woman lifted a small metallic ball from one of the bowls and dropped it into the other bowl. It made a soft clink as it fell. "I am the GateKeeper," the woman replied, her voice toneless. "I keep tally. Have you come to be counted? Why? You are yet alive." She smiled, and Axis wished she hadn't. Her smile had the appeal of a four-day dead corpse and the malevolence of a nightmare. "I have come with a request."

Another soul drifted into the Gate and the GateKeeper dropped another metal ball from one bowl to the other. She looked up at him again. "Yes? A request? How unusual. Rarely am I asked for requests."

Before Axis could answer, a stream of souls approached. The GateKeeper slowly and deliberately transferred the balls from one bowl to the other as each soul passed through the Gate. The continual and deliberate clicking of the balls as they dropped into the second bowl began to irritate Axis intensely. He tried to stop himself from shuffling.

Finally the stream of souls subsided and the GateKeeper looked up again. "A tavern fire," she explained listlessly. "Thirty-four dead."

"Do all who approach pass through?" Axis asked, wondering what she would do if one of the souls refused to pass through.

The GateKeeper pursed her lips. "No," she finally said, and waved at a small pile of some fifty dull black balls that lay on the extreme right side of the table.

"These refuse to go through."

Axis glanced at them, about to ask if FreeFall was among them, then he noticed that there were two other, smaller, piles of balls on the table. One pile of seven balls, sparkling like the stars, lay at the front centre, while a larger pile of some thirty or forty softly glowing golden balls, lay to the extreme left of the table. He pointed at the two extra piles. "And those?"

"Those?" The GateKeeper raised her eyebrows, and in that moment Axis realised she was the most impossibly beautiful woman he had ever seen. "You see those?"

"Yes," Axis replied. "Both piles glow, perhaps with the reflected light of the Gate. Are these souls who also refuse to go through?"

"No. These," she pointed at the pile of seven sparkling balls, "are the Greater, and they have no need of me or my Gate." She pursed her lips. "They are incomplete. They await Song and Moon."

Axis frowned, then his face relaxed as he remembered Orr's words. "The Star Gods."

"Yes. You are good. And these ..." The GateKeeper pointed at the larger pile of golden balls, then waved at the Ferryman waiting in his boat far below them.

"These," she said with a hint of amusement in her voice, "are the Lesser. They also do not have to go through my Gate."

Axis frowned. The Lesser? What did she mean? He opened his mouth to ask, but the GateKeeper forestalled him. "Why are you here?" she asked, calm and inscrutable again. All appearance of beauty had vanished.

"I have come to bring FreeFall SunSoar back from the dead," Axis said, realising how ridiculous it sounded. "He said he would wait at the Gate.

Perhaps," he indicated the small pile of balls that represented those who would not go through, "he waits among those."

"How amusing that you should think you could bring someone back. No-one ever comes back from the dead-"

"WolfStar has!" The woman took a harsh intake of breath, but retained her composure almost instantly.

"WolfStar left through a different Gate," she said, reverting to her expressionless tone. "And thus he would have come back through a different Gate. No-one comes back through this Gate. This is my Gate."

Axis glanced at the Gate, curious about what lay on the other side of Death - the greatest mystery of all, and the opportunity to solve it lay only paces away.

If WolfStar could come back through the Star Gate then perhaps he could somehow come back through this Gate if he walked through.

"If you wish, you can walk through, Axis SunSoar," the woman said, and Axis noticed a ball in her hand. "But you will never come back. Never." Her hand hovered over the second bowl.

"No." Axis swung her hand away from the bowl. To his surprise her flesh was warm and soft. Was that his life she held in his hand? "I do not wish to go through."

"Well," the GateKeeper smiled and replaced the ball in the first bowl, "as you will. Now, tell me. Why do you think you can return this soul to life?"

Axis told her the story of FreeFall's murder, of the promise the birdman had extracted from Axis as he lay dying. "FreeFall must wait among those souls who refuse to go through. Release him to me."

"Ah," the GateKeeper sighed melodramatically, her face softening into beauty once again, "it is a touching story you tell." Her face hardened. "But no.

No. No. No. No-one goes back once they are dead. Now, go away and leave me.

FreeFall SunSoar will not return to the land of the living."

"Damn you!" Axis gave in to his anger and disappointment. "Don't you understand anything? FreeFall died well before his time. Murdered. I promised*.

He believed me and now he waits for me! I cannot go back on my promise!"

Far below the Ferryman stirred resdessly.

"No," the GateKeeper said again.

Axis tried one last time. "I was unable to save him from Borneheld, GateKeeper, please give me the chance to save him now!"

The GateKeeper's lips formed the word "No", then stopped at the last moment as the name Axis had mentioned sank in. "Borneheld? Is this Borneheld the one who is also Duke of Ichtar?" she inquired placidly, but Axis could see that her fingers trembled on the table.

"Yes, he is the Duke of Ichtar."

"Ah," the GateKeeper breathed. "I do not like the Dukes of Ichtar."

Now her agitation was evident. She sat silently, deep in the memory of some wrong the Dukes of Ichtar had done her, her fingers shuffling up and down the table like wary spiders. Finally she spoke again, but now her voice quivered with repressed excitement.

"You have it in your power to right an injustice," she said.

"As do you. Release FreeFall."

"And you will help me to right the injustice done to me and mine?" the GateKeeper asked.

"What is it you want me to do?"

"Promise first."

Axis hesitated, then nodded. "I agree. What is it I have to do to bring FreeFall back?"

The GateKeeper's face collapsed in on itself until she resembled nothing more than a skull covered with a thin parchment of skin and a wig of stiff horsehair. "Listen," she rasped.

Axis listened.

When she was done, Axis looked almost as cadaverous as she did. "Even Borneheld does not deserve that," he whispered. "That is horrific. Barbarous."

"You promised," she hissed, "and even now I can exterminate FreeFall's soul so that he will never know the existence that waits for him on the other side of the Gate."

Axis had no choice. "Then you have a bargain, Gate-Keeper."

"Remember, the conditions of the contract must be met within a year and a day of your returning to the OverWorld."

"Yes, I remember. GateKeeper ..."

"Yes?"

"Why do you request such a bargain?"

"It is required," she said, calm once more.

Axis took a deep breath. "And FreeFall?"

"As I promised, StarMan, but you must keep your bargain, or the transformation will not complete itself and FreeFall will wither and die again."

Suddenly Axis wanted to escape these worlds beneath the surface of the earth into warmth and life again.