Douglass, Sara - Redemption 2 - Pilgrim

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Book Information:
Genre: High/Epic Fantasy
Author: Sara Douglass
Name: Pilgrim
Series: Book Two of
The Wayfarer Redemption
Extra Scan Info: This is book two of the sequel trilogy to
The Axis Trilogy
.
=======================================================================
Pilgrim
Book Two of
The Wayfarer Redemption
Sara Douglass
Prologue
The lieutenant pushed his fork back and forth across the table, back and forth, back and forth, his eyes
vacant, his mind and heart a thousand galaxies away.
Scrape . . . scrape ... scrape.
"For heaven's sake, Chris, will you stop that? It's driving me crazy!"
The lieutenant gripped the fork in his fist, and his companion tensed, thinking Chris would fling it across
the dull, black metal table towards him.
But Chris' hand suddenly relaxed, and he managed a tight, half-apologetic smile. "Sorry. It's just that this . .
. this ..."
"We only have another two day spans, mate, and then we wake the next shift for their stint at uselessness."
Chris' fingers traced gently over the surface of the table. It vibrated. Everything on the ship vibrated.
"I can't bloody wait for another stretch of deep sleep," he said quietly, his eyes flickering over to
Commander Devereaux sitting at a keyboard by the room's only porthole. "Unlike him."
His fellow officer nodded. Perhaps thirty-five rotations ago, waking from their allotted span of deep sleep,
the retiring crew had reported a strange vibration within the ship. No mechanical or structural problem ...
the ship was just vibrating.
And then . . . then they'd found that the ship was becoming a little sluggish in responding to commands, and
» 1 .
after five or six day spans it refused to respond to their commands at all.
The other three ships in the fleet had similar problems — at least, that's what their last communiques had
reported. The Ark crew were aware of the faint phosphorescent outlines in the wake of the other ships, but
that was all now. So here they were, hurtling through deep space, in ships that responded to no command,
and with cargo that the crews preferred not to think about. When they volunteered for this mission, hadn't
they been told that once they'd found somewhere to "dispose" of the cargo they could come home?
But now, the crew of The Ark wondered, what would be disposed of? The cargo? Or them?
It might have helped if the commander had come up with something helpful. But Devereaux seemed
peculiarly unconcerned, saying only that the vibrations soothed his soul and that the ships, if they no longer
responded to human command, at least seemed to know what they were doing.
And now here he was, tapping at that keyboard as if he actually had a purpose in life. None of them had a
purpose any more. They were as good as dead. Everyone knew that. Why not Devereaux?
"What are you doing, sir?" Chris asked. He had picked up the fork again, and it quivered in his over-tight
grip.
"I..." Devereaux frowned as if listening intently to something, then his fingers rattled over the keys. "I am
just writing this down."
"Writing what down, sir?" the other officer asked, his voice tight.
Devereaux turned slightly to look at them, his eyes wide. "Don't you hear it? Lovely music . . . enchanted
music ... listen, it vibrates through the ship. Don't you feel it?"
"No," Chris said. He paused, uncomfortable. "Why write it down, sir? For who? What is the bloody point
of writing it down?"
Devereaux smiled. "I'm writing it down for Katie, Chris. A song book for Katie."
Chris stared at him, almost hating the man. "Katie is dead, sir. She has been dead at least twelve thousand
years. I repeat, what is the fucking point!"
Devereaux's smile did not falter. He lifted a hand and placed it over his heart. "She lives here, Chris. She
always will. And in writing down these melodies, I hope that one day she will live to enjoy the music as
much as I do."
It was then that The Ark, in silent communion with the others, decided to let Devereaux live.
The speckled blue eagle clung to rocks under the overhang of the river cliffs a league south of Carlon. He
shuddered. Nothing in life made sense any more. He had been drifting the thermals, digesting his noonday
meal of rats, when a thin grey mist had enveloped him and sent despair stringing through his veins.
He could not fight it, and had not wanted to. His wings crippled with melancholy, he'd plummeted from the
sky, uncaring about his inevitable death.
It had seemed the best solution to his useless life.
Chasing rats? Ingesting them. Why?
In his mad, uncaring tumble out of control, the eagle struck the cliff face. The impact drove the breath from
him, and he thought it may also have broken one of his breast bones, but even in the midst of despair, the
eagle's talons scrabbled automatically for purchase among the rocks.
And then . . . then the despair had gone. Evaporated.
The eagle blinked and looked about.
It was cold here in the shadow of the rocks, and he wanted to warm himself in the sun again — but he
feared the grey-fingered enemy that awaited him within the thermals. In the open air.
What was this grey miasma? What had caused it?
4
He cocked his head to one side, his eyes unblinking, considering. Gryphon? Was this their mischief?
No. The Gryphon had long gone, and their evil he would have felt ripping into him, not seeping in with this
grey mist's many-fingered coldness. No, this was something very different.
Something worse.
The sun was sinking now, only an hour or two left until dusk, and the eagle did not want to spend the night
clinging to this cliff face.
He cocked his head — the grey haze had evaporated.
With fear — a new sensation for this most ancient and wise of birds — he cast himself into the air. He rose
over the Nordra, expecting any minute to be seized again by that consuming despair.
But there was nothing.
Nothing but the rays of the sun glinting from his feathers and the company of the sky.
Relieved, the eagle tilted his wings and headed for his roost under the eaves of one of the towers of Carlon.
He thought he would rest there a day or two. Watch. Discover if the evil would strike again, and, if so, how
best to survive it.
The yards of the slaughterhouse situated a half-league west of Tare were in chaos. Two of the slaughtermen
had been outside when Shed's mid-afternoon despair struck. Now they were dead, trampled beneath the
hooves of a thousand crazed livestock. The fourteen other men were still safe, for they had been inside and
protected when the TimeKeepers had burst through the Ancient Barrows.
Even though mid-afternoon had passed, and the world was once more left to its own devices, the men did
not dare leave the safety of the slaughterhouse.
Animals ringed the building. Sheep, a few pigs, seven old plough horses, and innumerable cattle — all once
destined
for death and butchery. All staring implacably, unblinkingly, at the doors and windows.
One of the pigs nudged at the door with his snout, and then squealed.
Instantly pandemonium broke out. A horse screamed, and threw itself at the door. The wooden planks
cracked, but did not break.
Imitating the horse's lead, cattle hurled themselves against the door and walls.
The slaughtermen inside grabbed whatever they could to defend themselves.
The walls began to shake under the onslaught. Sheep bit savagely at any protuberance, pulling nails from
boards with their teeth, and horses rent at walls with their hooves. All the animals wailed, one continuous
thin screech that forced the men inside to drop their weapons and clasp hands to ears, screaming
themselves.
The door cracked once more, then split. A brown steer shouldered his way through. He was plump and
healthy, bred and fattened to feed the robust appetites of the Tarean citizens. Now he had an appetite
himself.
Behind him many score cattle trampled into the slaughterhouse, pigs and sheep squeezing among the legs
of their bovine cousins as best they could.
The invasion was many bodied, but it acted with one mind.
The slaughtermen did not die well.
The creatures used only their teeth to kill, not their hooves, and those teeth were grinders, not biters, and so
those men were ground into the grave, and it was not a fast nor pleasant descent.
Of all the creatures once destined for slaughter, only the horses did not enter the slaughterhouse and partake
of the meal.
They lingered outside in the first of the collecting yards, nervous, unsure, their heads high, their skin
twitching. One
6»
snorted, then pranced about a few paces. He'd not had this much energy since he'd been a yearling.
A shadow flickered over one of the far fences, then raced across the trampled dirt towards the group of
horses. They bunched together, turning to watch the shadow, and then it swept over them and the horses
screamed, jerked, and then stampeded, breaking through the fence in their panic.
High above, the flock of Hawkchilds veered to the east and turned their eyes once more to the Ancient
Barrows.
Their masters called.
The horses fled, running east with all the strength left in their hearts.
At the slaughterhouse, a brown and cream badger ambled into the bloodied building and stood surveying
the carnage.
You have done well, he spoke to those inside. Would you like to exact yet more vengeance?
Sheol tipped back her head and exposed her slim white throat to the afternoon sun. Her fingers spasmed
and dug into the rocky soil of the ruined Barrow she sat on, her body arched, and she moaned and
shuddered.
A residual wisp of grey miasma still clung to a corner of her lip.
"Sheol?" Raspu murmured and reached out a hand. "Sheol?" At the soft touch of his hand, Sheol's sapphire
eyes jerked open and she bared her teeth in a snarl.
Raspu did not flinch. "Sheol? Did you feast well?"
The entire group of TimeKeeper Demons regarded her curiously, as did StarLaughter sitting slightly to one
side with a breast bared, its useless nipple hanging from her undead child's mouth.
Sheol blinked, and then her snarl widened into a smile, and the reddened tip of her tongue probed slowly at
the corners of her lips.
She gobbled down the remaining trace of mist.
.7.
"I fed well]" she cried, and leapt to her feet, spinning about in a circle. "Well!"
Her companions stared at her, noting the new flush of strength and power in her cheeks and eyes, and they
howled with anticipation. Sheol began an ecstatic caper, and the Demons joined her in dance, holding
hands and circling in tight formation through the rubble of earth and rocks that had once been the Barrow.
They screamed and shrieked, intoxicated with success.
The Minstrelsea forest, encircling the ruined spaces of the Ancient Barrows, was silent. Listening.
Watching.
StarLaughter pulled the material of her gown over her breast and smiled for her friends. It had been eons
since they had fed, and she could well understand their excitement. They had sat still and silent as Sheol's
demonic influence had issued from her nostrils and mouth in a steady effluence of misty grey contagion.
The haze had coalesced about her head for a moment, blurring her features, and had then rippled forth with
the speed of thought over the entire land of Tencendor.
Every soul it touched — Icarii, human, bird or animal — had been infected, and Sheol had fed generously
on each one of them.
Now how well Sheol looked! The veins of her neck throbbed with life, and her teeth were whiter and her
mouth redder than StarLaughter had ever seen. Stars, but the others must be beside themselves in the wait
for their turn!
StarLaughter rose slowly to her feet, her child clasped protectively in her hands. "When?" she said.
The Demons stopped and stared at her.
"We need to wait a few days," Raspu finally replied.
"What?" StarLaughter cried. "My son —"
"Not before then," Sheol said, and took a step towards StarLaughter. "We all need to feed, and once we
have grown the stronger for the feeding we can dare the forest paths."
She cast her eyes over the distant trees and her lip curled. "We will move during our time, and on our
terms."
» 8 »
"You don't like the forest?" StarLaughter said.
"It is not dead," Barzula responded. "And it is far, far too gloomy."
"But —" StarLaughter began.
"Hush," Rox said, and he turned flat eyes her way. "You ask too many questions."
StarLaughter closed her mouth, but she hugged her baby tightly to her, and stared angrily at the Demons.
Sheol smiled, and patted StarLaughter on the shoulder. "We are tense, Queen of Heaven. Pardon our ill
manners."
StarLaughter nodded, but Sheol's apology had done little to appease her anger.
"Why travel the forest if you do not like it," she said. "Surely the waterways would be the safest and fastest
way to reach Cauldron Lake."
"No," Sheol said. "Not the waterways. We do not like the waterways."
"Why not?" StarLaughter asked, shooting Rox a defiant look.
"Because the waterways are the Enemy's construct, and they will have set traps for us," Sheol said. "Even if
they are long dead, their traps are not. The waterways are too closely allied with —"
"Them," Barzula said.
"— their voyager craft," Sheol continued through the interruption, "to be safe for us. No matter. We will
dare the forests ... and survive. After Cauldron Lake the way will be easier. Not only will we be stronger,
we will be in the open."
All of the Demons relaxed at the thought of open territory.
"Soon my babe will live and breath and cry my name," StarLaughter whispered, her eyes unfocused and her
hands digging into the babe's cool, damp flesh.
"Oh, assuredly," Sheol said, and shared a secret wink with her companion Demons. She laughed.
"Assuredly!"
The other Demons howled in shared merriment, and StarLaughter smiled, thinking she understood.
Then as one the Demons quietened, their faces falling still. Rox turned slowly to the west. "Hark," he said.
"What is that?"
"Conveyance," said Mot.
If the TimeKeeper Demons did not like to use the waterways, then WolfStar had no such compunction.
When he'd slipped away from the Chamber of the Star Gate, he'd not gone to the surface, as had everyone
else. Instead, WolfStar had faded back into the waterways. They would protect him as nothing else could;
the pack of resurrected children would not be able to find him down here. And WolfStar did not want to be
found, not for a long time.
He had something very important to do.
Under one arm he carried a sack with as much tenderness and care as StarLaughter carried her undead
infant. The sack's linen was slightly stained, as if with effluent, and it left an unpleasant odour in WolfStar's
wake.
Niah, or what was left of her.
Niah ... WolfStar's face softened very slightly. She had been so desirable, so strong, when she'd been the
First Priestess on the Isle of Mist and Memory. She'd carried through her task — to bear Azhure in the
hateful household of Hagen, the Plough Keeper of Smyrton — with courage and sweetness, and had passed
that courage and sweetness to their enchanted daughter.
For that courage WolfStar had promised Niah rebirth and his love, and he'd meant to give her both.
Except things hadn't turned out quite so well as planned. Niah's manner of death (and even WolfStar
shuddered whenever he thought of it) had warped her soul so brutally that she'd been reborn a vindictive,
hard woman. So determined to re-seize life that she cared not what her determination might do to the other
lives she touched.
Not the woman WolfStar had thought to love. True, the re-born Niah been pleasing enough, and eager
enough, and
10-
WolfStar had adored her quickness in conceiving of an heir, but...
... but the fact was she'd failed. Failed WolfStar and failed Tencendor at the critical moment. WolfStar had
thought of little else in the long hours he'd wandered the dank and dark halls of the waterways. Niah had
distracted him when his full concentration should have been elsewhere (could he have stopped Drago if he
hadn't been so determined to bed Niah?), and her inability to keep her hold on the body she'd gained meant
that WolfStar had again been distracted — with grief] damn it! — just when his full power and attention
was needed to help ward the Star Gate.
Niah had failed because Zenith had proved too strong. Who would have thought it? True, Zenith had the
aid of Faraday, and an earthworm could accomplish miracles if it had Faraday to help it, but even so ...
Zenith had been the stronger, and WolfStar had always been the one to be impressed by strength.
Ah! He had far more vital matters to think of than pondering Zenith's sudden determination. Besides, with
what he planned, he could get back the woman he'd always meant to have. Alive. Vibrant. And very, very
powerful.
His fingers unconsciously tightened about the sack.
This time Niah would not fail.
WolfStar grinned, feral and confident in the darkness.
"Here," he muttered, and ducked into a dark opening no more than head height.
It was an ancient drain, and it lead to the bowels of the Keep on the shores of Cauldron Lake.
WolfStar knew exactly what he had to do.
The horses ran, and their crippled limbs ate up the leagues with astonishing ease. Directly above them flew
the Hawkchilds, so completely in unison that as one lifted his wings, so all lifted, and as another swept hers
down, so all swept theirs down.
»11«
Each stroke of their wings corresponded exactly with a stride of the horses.
And with each stroke of the Hawkchilds' wings, the horses felt as if they were lifted slightly into the air,
and their strides lengthened so that they floated a score of paces with each stride. When their hooves beat
earthward again, they barely grazed the ground before they powered effortlessly forward into their next
stride.
And with each stride, the horses felt life surge through their veins and tired muscles. Necks thickened and
arched, nostrils flared crimson, sway-backs straightened and flowed strong into newly muscled haunches.
Hair and skin darkened and fined, until they glowed a silky ebony.
Strange things twisted inside their bodies, but of those changes there was, as yet, no outward sign.
Once fit only for the slaughterhouse, great black war horses raced across the plains, heading for the Ancient
Barrows.
12.
The Dreamer
The bones had lain there for almost twenty years, picked clean by scavengers and the passing winds of
time. They had been a neat pile when the tired old soul had lain down for the final time; now they were
scattered over a half-dozen paces, some resting in the glare of the sun, others piled under the gloom of a
thorn bush.
Footsteps disturbed the peace of the grave site. A tall and willowy woman, dressed in a clinging pale grey
robe. Iron-grey hair, streaked with silver, cascaded down her back. On the ring finger of her left hand she
wore a circle of stars. She had very deep blue eyes and a red mouth, with blood trailing from one corner
and down her chin.
As she neared the largest pile of bones the woman crouched, and snarled, her hands tensed into tight claws.
"Fool way to die!" she hissed. "Alone and forgotten! Did you think 7 forgot? Did you think to escape me so
easily?"
She snarled again, and grabbed a portion of the rib cage, flinging it behind her. She snatched at another
bone, and threw that with the ribs. She scurried a little further away, reached under the thorn bush and
hauled out its desiccated treasury of bones, also throwing them on the pile.
She continued to snap and snarl, as if she had the rabid fever of wild dogs, scurrying from spot to spot,
picking up a
• 13
knuckle here, a vertebrae there, a cracked femur bone from somewhere else.
The pile of bones grew.
"I want to hunt," she whispered, "and yet what must I do? Find your useless framework, and knit something
out of it! Why must / be left to do it all?"
She finally stood, surveying the skeletal pile before her. "Something is missing," she mumbled, and swept
her hands back through her hair, combing it out of her eyes.
Her tongue had long since licked clean the tasty morsel draining down her chin.
"Missing," she continued to mumble, wandering in circles about the desolate site. "Missing . . . where ...
where ... ah!"
She snatched at a long white hair that clung to the outer reaches of the thorn bush and hurried back to the
pile of bones with it. She carefully laid it across the top.
Then she stood back, standing very still, her dark blue eyes staring at the bones.
Very slowly she raised her left hand, and the circle of light about its ring finger flared.
"Of what use is bone to me?" she whispered. "I need fleshl"
She dropped her hand, and the light flared from ring to bones.
The pile burst into flame.
Without fear the woman stepped close and reached into the conflagration with both hands. She grabbed
hold of something, grunted with effort, then finally, gradually, hauled it free.
Her own shape changed slightly during her efforts, as if her muscles had to rearrange themselves to manage
to drag the large object free of the fire, and in the flickering light she seemed something far larger and
bulkier than human, and more dangerous. Yet when she finally stood straight again, she had regained her
womanly features.
« 14 «
She looked happily at the result of her endeavour. Her magic had not dimmed in these past hours! But she
shook her head slightly. Look what had become of hint!
He stood, limbs akimbo, pot belly drooping, and he returned her scrutiny blankly, no gratitude in his face at
all.
"You are of this land," she said, "and there is still service it demands of you. Go south, and wait."
He stared, unblinking, uncaring, and then he gave a mighty yawn. The languor of death had not yet left
him, and all he wanted to do was to sleep.
"Oh!" she said, irritated. "Go!"
She waved her hand again, the light flared, and when it had died, she stood alone in the stony gully of the
Urqhart Hills.
Grinning again at the pleasantness of solitude, she turned and ran for the north, and as she did so her shape
changed, and her limbs loped, and her tongue hung red from her mouth, and she felt the need to sink her
teeth into the back of prey, very, very soon.
Scrawny limbs trembling, pot belly hanging from gaunt ribs, he stood on the plain just north of the
Rhaetian Hills.
Beside him the Nordra roared.
He was desperate for sleep, and so he hung his head, and he dreamed.
He dreamed. He dreamed of days so far distant he did not know if they were memory or myth. He dreamed
of great battles, defeats and victories both, and he dreamed of the one who had loved him, and who he'd
loved beyond expression. Then he'd been crippled, and the one who loved him had shown him the door, and
so he'd wandered disconsolate — save for the odd loving the boy showed him — until his life had trickled
to a conclusion in blessed, blessed death. Then why was he back?
• 15*
3
The Feathered Lizard
Faraday kept her arm tight about the man as they walked towards where she'd left Zenith and the
donkeys. He'd grown tired in the past hour, as if the effort of surviving the Star Gate and then watching the
effects of the Demons flow over the land, had finally exhausted him both physically and mentally.
Faraday did not feel much better. This past day had drained her: fighting to repel the horror of the Demons'
passage through the Star Gate and fighting to save Drago from the collapsing chamber, then emerging from
the tunnel to find Tencendor wrapped in such horrific despair, had left its mark on her soul. For hours she'd
had to fight off the bleak certainty that there was nothing anyone could do against the TimeKeepers.
"Drago," she murmured. "Just a little further. See? There is Zenith!"
Zenith, who had been waiting with growing anxiety, ran forward from where she'd been pacing by the cart.
A corner of her cloak caught in the exposed root of a tree, and she ripped it free in her haste.
"Faraday! Drago! Drago?" Zenith wrapped her arms about her brother, taking the load from Faraday. "Is he
all right, Faraday? And you . . . you look dreadful!"
The staff Drago had been clutching now fell from his fingers and rolled a few paces away.
16
"He needs some rest," Faraday said. She tried to smile, and failed. "We both do."
Zenith looked between both of them. Her relief that Faraday was well, and had managed to ensure Drago's
safe return, was overwhelmed by her concern at how debilitated both were. Drago was a heavy weight in
her arms, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow, while the only colour in Faraday's ashen face were the
rings of exhaustion under her eyes. She had clasped her arms about herself in an effort to stop them
shaking.
What happened? Zenith longed to ask.
"The cart," she said, and half-dragged, half-lifted Drago towards it.
"Let me help," Faraday said, and took the weight of his legs.
Between them they managed to lift Drago into the tray of the cart, then Zenith helped Faraday in.
"Sleep," she said, pulling a blanket over them. "Sleep."
Drago and Faraday shared the bed of the cart, and shared the sleep of the exhausted; and they shared a
dream, although neither would remember it when they woke.
But over the next few days, as they wandered the forest, the scent of a flowering bush occasionally made
one or the other lift a head and pause, and fight for the memory the scent evoked.
Zenith watched them for a long time. She was torn between relief at their return — thank the Stars Drago
was alive! — and concern for both Faraday and Drago's state. What both had endured, either with the
Demons, or within the Star Gate Chamber itself, must have been close to unbearable. Even though she had
been protected by the trees of Minstrelsea, Zenith had felt a trickle of the despair that had overwhelmed
Tencendor when the Demons had broken through, and she could only imagine what Faraday had gone
through so close to the Star Gate.
But Faraday and Drago were not Zenith's only concerns. She wished she knew what had happened to
StarDrifter. He'd been at the Star Gate towards the end, trying to help her parents to ward it against the
Demons. Would she see him again?
It didn't occur to Zenith that she hardly thought about her parents. Now that she knew Faraday and Drago
were safe, she needed to know that StarDrifter was as well. To think that he was dead ... or somehow under
the Demons' thrall. ..
Zenith shivered and pulled her cloak closer about her. She could feel how deeply disturbed the forest was .
.. were the Demons secreted within its trees? Were they even now creeping closer to where Zenith stood
watch over Faraday and Drago?
Zenith's head jerked at a movement in the shadows. Something was there . . . something . . . There was
another movement, more distinct this time, and Zenith felt her chest constrict in horror. There! Something
lurking behind the ghost oak.
She stumbled toward the donkeys' heads, thinking to try and pull them forward, get herself and her sleeping
companions away from whatever it was .. . escape . . . but when she tugged at the nearest donkey's halter it
refused to budge.
"Damn you!" Zenith hissed, and leaned all her weight into the effort. Why in the world did Faraday travel
with these obstinate creatures when she could have chosen a well-trained and obliging horse?
Zenith tugged again, and wondered if she should take a stick to the damned creatures.
The donkey snorted irritably and yanked her head out of Zenith's grasp.
Just as Zenith again reached for the halter, something emerged from the gloom behind the nearest tree.
Zenith's heart lurched. She dropped her hand, stared about for a stick that she could defend Faraday and
Drago
» 18 •
with . . . and then breathed a sigh of relief, wiping trembling hands down her robe.
It was just one of the fey creatures of the forest, no doubt so disturbed by the presence of the Demons that it
cared not that it wandered so close to Zenith and the donkeys.
It was a strange mixture of lizard and bird. About the size of a small dog, it had the body of a large iguana,
covered with bright blue body feathers, and with a vivid emerald and scarlet crest. It had impossibly deep
black eyes that absorbed the light about it. What it used the light for Zenith could not say, perhaps as food,
but once absorbed, the lizard apparently channelled the light through some furnace within its body, for it re-
emerged from its diamond-like talons in glinting shafts that shimmered about the forest.
Zenith smiled, for the feathered lizard was a thing of great beauty.
Watching Zenith carefully, the lizard crawled the distance between the tree and the cart, giving both
donkeys and Zenith a wide berth. It sniffed briefly about the wheels of the cart, then, in an abrupt
movement, jumped into the tray.
Zenith moved very slowly so she could see what the lizard was doing — and then stopped, stunned.
The lizard was sitting close to Drago's head, gently running its talons through his loose hair, almost. . .
almost as if it were combing it, or weaving a cradle of light about his head.
Zenith was vividly reminded of the way the courtyard cats in Sigholt had taken every opportunity they
could to snuggle up to Drago.
Zenith's eyes widened, and suddenly the lizard decided to take exception to her presence. It narrowed its
eyes and hissed at her, then leaped to the ground and scuttled away into the trees.
Zenith stared at the place where it had disappeared, then looked back to Drago. She smoothed the loose
strands of his coppery hair (was it brighter now than it had been
*19»
previously?) away from his face, studying him carefully. He looked the same — and yet different. His face
was still thin and lined, but the lines were stronger, more clearly defined, as if they had been created
through purpose rather than through resentment and bitterness. And even though he was asleep, there was a
strange "quiet" about him. It was the only way Zenith could describe it to herself. A quiet that in itself gave
purpose — and hope.
His eyelids flickered open at her touch, and his mouth moved as if to smile.
But he was clearly too exhausted even for that effort. "Zenith," he whispered. "Are you well?" Zenith's eyes
filled with tears. Had he been worried for her all this time? The last time he'd seen her had been in Niah's
Grove in the far north of the forest, battling the Niah-soul within her.
She smiled, and took his hand. "I am well," she said. "Go back to sleep."
Now his mouth did flicker in a faint smile, but his eyes were closed and he was asleep again even before it
faded.
Zenith stood and watched him for some time, cradling his hand gently in hers, then she looked at Faraday.
The woman was deeply asleep, peaceful and unmoving, and Zenith finally set down Drago's hand and
moved away from the cart.
Unsure what to do, and unsettled by the continuing agitation she could feel from the trees, Zenith
remembered the staff that Drago had dropped. She walked about until she found where it had rolled, and
she picked it up, studying it curiously.
It was made of a beautiful deep red wood that felt warm in her hands. It was intricately carved in a pattern
that Zenith could not understand. There was a line of characters that wound about the entire length of the
staff, strange characters, made up of what appeared to be small black circles with short hooked lines
attached to them.
«20»
The top of the staff was curled over like a shepherd's crook, but the knob was carved into the shape of a
lily.
Zenith had never seen anything like it. She hefted the staff, and laid it down next to Drago.
Then she sighed and walked away, sitting down under a tree. She let her thoughts meander until they
became loose and meaningless, and her head drooped in sleep.
She dreamed she was falling through the sky, but in the instant before she hit the ground StarDrifter was
there, laughing, his arms held out for her.
/ will always be there to catch you, I'll always be there for you.
And Zenith smiled, and dreamed on.
A hand touched her shoulder, and Zenith awoke with a start.
It was Faraday, looking well and rested.
"Faraday?" Zenith said. "How are you? Is Drago still in the cart? What happened at —"
"Shush," Faraday said, and sat down beside Zenith. "I have slept the night through, and Drago still sleeps.
Now," she took a deep breath, and her body tensed, "let me tell you what happened in the Chamber of the
Star Gate."
Zenith sat quietly, listening to the horror of the emergence of the children — but children no longer, more
like birds — and of StarLaughter and the undead child she carried, and then of the appalling evil of the
Demons.
"Oh, Zenith," Faraday said in a voice barely above a whisper. "They were more than dreadful. Anyone
caught outside of shelter during the times when they hunt will suffer an appalling death — and a worse life
if they are spared death."
She stopped, and took Zenith's hand, unable to look her in the face.
"Zenith, the Demons destroyed the Star Gate."
Zenith stared at Faraday, for a moment unable to comprehend the enormity of what she'd just heard.
"Destroyed the Star Gate?" she repeated, frowning. "But they can't. I mean ... that would mean ..."
Zenith trailed off. If the Star Gate was destroyed that would mean the sound of the Star Dance would never
filter through Tencendor, even if the TimeKeeper Demons could be stopped.
"No," Zenith said. "I cannot believe that. The Star Gate can't be destroyed. It can't. It can'tl"
Faraday was weeping now. "I'm sorry, Zenith. I..."
Zenith grabbed at her, hugging her tight, and now both wept. Although Zenith had known that the approach
of the Demons meant that the Star Dance would be blocked, she had not even imagined that the Demons
would actually destroy the Star Gate on their way through.
There was not even a hope for the Dance to ever resume.
"Our entire lives without the Dance?" Zenith whispered. "Even if we can best these Demons, we will never
again have the Star Dance?"
Faraday wiped her eyes and sat up straight. "I don't know, Zenith. I just don't."
"Faraday ... did you see StarDrifter at the Star Gate?"
"No. I am sorry, Zenith. I don't know where he is ... but I am sure he is safe."
"Oh." Zenith's face went expressionless for a moment. "And the Sceptre?" she finally said.
"That, at least, is safe." Faraday looked back to the cart. "But transformed, as is everything that comes
through the Star Gate. Come. It is time to wake Drago up. There are some clothes for him in the box under
the seat of the cart, and we all need to eat."
"And then?"
"Then we go find Zared, make sure he is well."
"And then?"
Faraday smiled, and stood, holding out her hand for Zenith. "And then we begin to search for a hope.
Come."
22
Despair and then, as night settled upon the land, terror swept over Tencendor, but it left him unscathed. He
was lost in his dreams, and the Demons could not touch him. He shuffled from leg to leg, trying to ease his
arthritic weight, but none of it helped. He wished death would come back and take him once more.
His head drooped. He'd thought to have escaped both the sadnesses of life and the crippling pains of the
body. If he hoped hard enough, would death come back?
• 23 «
What To Do?
The might of Tencendor's once proud army now stood in groups of five or six under the trees of the
northern Silent Woman Woods, eyes shifting nervously. Some members of the Icarii Strike Force preferred
to huddle in the lower branches of the trees, as if that way they could be slightly closer to the stars they had
lost contact with. Thirty thousand men and Icarii adrift in a world they no longer understood.
Their leader, StarSon Caelum, walked slowly about, the fingers of one hand rubbing at his chin and cheek,
his eyes sliding away from the fear in his men's faces, thinking that now he knew how Drago must have felt
when his Icarii powers had been quashed.
There was nothing left. No Star Dance. No enchantment. Nothing. Just an emptiness. And a sense of
uselessness so profound that Caelum thought he would go mad if he had to live beyond a day with it.
"Faraday said she would join us here," Zared said, watching Caelum pace to and fro. He sat on a log, his
hands dangling down between his knees, his face impassive.
"And you think she can help us against this .. . this ...?" Caelum drifted to a halt, not sure quite what to call
this calamity that had enveloped them.
"Can your
24
Caelum spun about on his heel and walked a few paces away.
"We can do little, Caelum, until we hear from Faraday."
"Or my parents."
"Or your parents," Zared agreed. He paused, watching Caelum pace about. He did not care for the loss that
Caelum — and every other Enchanter — had suffered. They relied so deeply on their powers and their
beloved Star Dance, that Zared did not know if they could continue to function effectively without it.
Caelum was StarSon, the man who must pull them through this crisis — but could he do it if he was
essentially not the same man he had been a few weeks ago? How could anyone who had previously relied
on the Star Dance remain effective?
Maybe Axis. Axis had been BattleAxe, and a good BattleAxe, for years before he'd known anything about
the Star Dance.
And yet hadn't Axis said that even when he'd thought himself human, mortal, he'd still subconsciously
drawn on the Star Dance? Still used its power and aid?
Well, time would tell if Icarii blood was worth anything without the music of the Star Dance.
At the moment, Zared had his doubts. He would gladly trade Tencendor's entire stock of useless Enchanters
and SunSoars for the hope Faraday offered.
Suddenly sick of watching Caelum pacing uselessly to and fro, Zared stood and walked over to where
Herme, Theod, Dare Wing FullHeart and Leagh were engaged in a lacklustre game of ghemt.
Leagh looked up and smiled for him as he approached, and Zared squatted down by her, a hand on her
shoulder.
"How goes it, Leagh?"
"She wins," Herme replied, "for how can we," his hand indicated his two companions, "allow such a
beautiful woman to lose?"
Leagh grinned. "My 'beauty' has nothing to do with the
'25
fact, my good Earl Herme, that I am far more skilled than you."
All the men laughed, and threw their gaming sticks into the centre of the circle scratched into the dirt
摘要：

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