Pilgrim (52 page)

There was a silence between them for a while.

“And then,” Drago said softly, peering yet further into the distance, “there must be still more trapped in the forbidding wilds of Tencendor. What of those in Skarabost? And in your native Ichtar? And Nor, and Tarantaise?”

“You cannot surely hope to retrieve
everyone
?” Zared said.

“I must,” Drago replied, and turned his eyes back to Zared. “I must! If I leave even one soul that I could have saved to feed the appetites of the Demons, how then can
I
be saved?”

Caelum leaned back against the wind and laughed. Urbeth’s eyes gleamed.

“And then…then, oh two-legged one, the seal said to me—”

“No! No!” Caelum said. “I do not want to hear what the poor seal said to try and save its life. No doubt it didn’t succeed.”

Urbeth grinned. “You are right. I sank my teeth into its back halfway through its pleading. It was boring me.”

Caelum wiped his eyes, still chuckling. He had never thought to be so amused by a story of a seal’s death, but the way Urbeth told it…

They had sat here swapping tales for what seemed like months—or was it years? Caelum had no way of gauging the time. There was only snow and cold that somehow did not perturb him, and the leap and twist of flame and words.

He remembered some vague wish he’d had as an infant to spend months wandering the northern wastes and talking
with Urbeth, but as he’d grown he’d never found the time or the energy.

Now he had the time. He and Urbeth had shared not only tales, but also knowledge. Urbeth had talked to him about the craft and the Survivor. He told her of his sins. She’d shared her own sorrow at what she’d not done, and her joy at what she’d thought not to do, but had anyway. He’d hardly believed it when, halfway through one of her soliloquies, he’d realised her true identity.

Stars! She’d seen the look in his eye, and had nodded briefly, but that was the only concession either she or he had made to her ancient role as Mother of Races.

Mostly, Caelum had simply rediscovered the joy in life—something he realised he’d lost a long, long time ago.

“Ah,” said Urbeth, looking over Caelum’s shoulder at something approaching from the south.

He twisted about, expecting to see Drago, but all he saw were what he first thought looked like two small white donkeys, then gradually materialised into two great icebears, almost as large as Urbeth herself.

“My daughters,” Urbeth said. “I would wager they have a tale or two to add to the warmth of this fire.”

“
W
ell?” Zenith asked anxiously, staring at StarDrifter. There was peace between them, although as yet neither was at ease with that peace. Despite StarDrifter’s unconditional love, and his immense patience in a situation where he’d never before had to be patient, Zenith still felt guilty. As for StarDrifter, he felt as if Zenith might flinch every time he so much as glanced at her.

“They are there,” he said quietly. He looked beyond the screen of trees and across the Lake.

“Where? I cannot see them!”

StarDrifter hesitated, then pointed. “There. Between the holyoak and the whalebone tree. Do you see?”

She stared, then nodded.

“And you, Isfrael?”

Isfrael stood with them, his entire body rigid with fury. News had been brought to him but an hour previously of the corpses found in the glade where WolfStar had been kept. Isfrael did not know if the Enchanter had gone with the Demons willingly, or if he had been forced—more blood found on the ground suggested that more force had been required than persuasion—but Isfrael did not care about the niceties of the difference. WolfStar was now with the Demons, as was that half-dead but bewitched she-creature he had carried about with him, and that, as well as the deaths of three good men, was all that mattered.

“And does the sight make you reconsider Drago’s plea that you evacuate your people into Sanctuary?” StarDrifter asked. StarDrifter could not understand Isfrael. The Mage-King accepted that Drago was the StarSon, yet stubbornly resisted any suggestion that he send the Avar into safety.

Isfrael did not reply, not even blinking as he stared at the dim dusk-cloaked forms on their black creatures in the distance.

“Your magic could not stop them, Isfrael.” StarDrifter’s voice had hardened. “They discarded it as if it were a wisp of a child’s imagination. Would you condemn the Avar to death for the sake of your pride?”

“The forests—” Isfrael began.

“The forests will be burned to the ground when Qeteb rises,” StarDrifter hissed. “I trust that you will enjoy watching as your people roast for your stupidity!”

Isfrael finally turned to his grandfather. “I
know
what is best for
my
people,” he said. “Cease your useless interfering!”

StarDrifter’s mouth hardened into a thin line. Curse Isfrael! He was as stubborn—and as blind—as a braindamaged mule.

Beside them, Zenith’s breath jerked in her throat. Both StarDrifter and Isfrael stared at her, then turned to see where she looked.

“Oh dear sweet gods of creation,” Zenith whispered. “It is WolfStar!
What have they done to him!
”

StarDrifter’s eyes jerked momentarily to Zenith’s face. What was that emotion in her voice? Horror? Or sympathy? Then he looked back to the scene before him.

The Demons advanced from treeline to water’s edge with more than usual circumspection. There was something odd, something different, in this place, but they could not smell it or taste it or see it or hear it, and that made them very, very cautious.

Was there another trap of the Enemy’s here? Another bridge to snatch at one of them?

Their jewel-bright eyes glowed, searching the landscape. The Demons studied the terrain carefully, slowly, but their eyes did not linger when they passed over the line of trees that Drago had created to screen the Icarii evacuation.

Slightly to one side of them, and closer to the hidden entrance to Sanctuary, StarLaughter stood with WolfStar still collared and chained to her hand. The Enchanter crouched, as motionless as StarLaughter’s still occasionally cruel hand would allow, for every movement ripped agony through him. He knew he’d been cruelly injured by Raspu’s rape; not only the rape itself, but whatever essence the Demon had spurted into his body felt like it was eating away at his entrails, and corroding his lungs.

Even breathing was torment.

WolfStar wondered if he would survive whatever Mot or Barzula chose to do to him, but he wondered more whether Tencendor would survive what the Demons did with Niah. Was there a chance he could yet get her away from them?

Just behind StarLaughter and WolfStar, completely motionless and vacant, stood the boy and girl. Both were naked, their pale, gleaming pubescent bodies empty vessels for whatever would fill them here, and StarLaughter, in either cruel jest or hopeful anticipation, had put them hand in hand.

“Your son and your lover,” she said to WolfStar when she’d done it. “Will you allow your son the pleasure of your lover? Will you smile indulgently when you watch them couple?”

WolfStar had turned away, refusing to respond to her taunts.

Now Zenith dragged her eyes away from WolfStar’s battered body to the girl beyond him. “Gods! It’s Niah!” she cried. “Oh dear gods, it’s Niah!”

Her hands were to her cheeks, her eyes huge. Everything about the scene before her filled her with horror. Whether the sight of the Demons, or the bloodied and fouled WolfStar, or the horrible, horrible sight of Niah resurrected when Zenith had been
sure
that she had disposed of her once and for all,
Zenith could not cope with it all at once, and she turned away, leaning on a tree for support.

As it was with Zenith, so with StarDrifter and Isfrael, although they did not have the same depth of revulsion at the sight of Niah as she’d had.

“That must be WolfStar’s son,” Isfrael eventually said quietly, inclining his head towards the boy.

“Qeteb half-reborn,” said StarDrifter, also taking pains to keep his voice low, although it was apparent the enchantment shielded them from the Demon’s eyes and ears. He glanced behind him. The lines of the Icarii were thinning now. In the past few days most had managed to find their way down to Sanctuary, and it was only the few who’d had to come from outlying areas that were now scurrying down the stairwell as fast as they could go.

He turned back to watch the Demons.

“How do we go down?” StarLaughter asked. She was impatient to see her son gain a little more of Qeteb’s life. The sooner he could wreak his own revenge on his father the better.
And
the merrier! StarLaughter spared a glance in WolfStar’s direction. She hoped the Enchanter would survive to endure his full-grown son’s hatred.

Sheol cut back on her temper. “We have told you
before
we do not go down again. From this point what we need comes
up.
”

The Demons had grown in power feasting on the souls of the living creatures of Tencendor. They were nowhere near their full power, but they’d glutted enough to pull what they needed to them, rather than the other way around.

Movement. Movement lay below, waiting lustfully.

Sheol moved forward to the very edge of the Lake, the waters lapping her toes, then seized the neckline of her robe in her hands, and ripped the cloth apart.

She threw the discarded halves to one size, and stood naked before the Lake the Avar called the Mother.

StarLaughter stared amazed. Sheol had the form of a female dog. Only her head and arms were vaguely human.

Sheol dropped to all fours, her arms in the water to the elbows, her hind legs resting on the sand. Her body was thin and covered with a brindle pelt. A short tail stood erect, and between her hind legs hung pendulous dugs, as if she’d only recently nursed a litter of puppies.

StarLaughter’s mouth curled in distaste. Couldn’t Sheol have thought of a more appropriate form?

Sheol growled, and hung her head down. Saliva dripped from her jaws in a grey foam, reminiscent of the haze that issued forth from the Demons’ mouths during their hours of feeding.

There was a rasping to one side, and StarLaughter tore her eyes away from Sheol.

Raspu. Panting, his eyes on Sheol’s hindquarters, and StarLaughter’s mouth curled even further in distaste. Surely not!

In the next instant Raspu had torn away his own clothing, revealing a body also shaped liked a dog’s—a great muscled mastiff—but with the flexibility of a serpent, and then he was down on all fours by Sheol’s side, quivering and whining and drooling.

Another movement, and Mot and Barzula had also torn away their clothes, revealing dog-like forms, and were prancing about in the shallows of the water, tipping their heads back to howl at the new moon just risen above the trees.

Their heads lengthened and sharpened into serpent heads, their tongues forking in and out, tasting the air.

“’Tis not me who should be collared and chained,” WolfStar said behind StarLaughter, and she turned and pulled viciously at the chain until he cried out and wept with agony.

“They are more faithful than
you
,” she spat. “And dog-like yourself, with the morals of a snake, it is no wonder you appeal to their lusts!”

She pulled and twisted the chain again, and was rewarded with a howl of pain.

“Grovel, WolfStar!” she whispered. “
Grovel
before me and I may yet grant you a speedy death!”

Only StarDrifter and Isfrael were now left to watch from the trees, their horror increasing with every moment that passed. As Sheol had revealed her bitch-form, Zenith had stumbled away, her hand to her mouth. WingRidge, who had been watching the three of them from the entrance to the stairwell, came forward, put his arm about her, and guided her down to Sanctuary. As they’d gone down, he had passed a quiet word to one of the Lake Guard, ordering him to stop the trail of Icarii and Avar through the trees towards Fernbrake Lake for the time being…until the Demons had got what they wanted and had gone.

Only StarDrifter and Isfrael—and the unseen woman on the top of the eastern ridge—were left to witness the passing of Fernbrake Lake.

The four creatures howled and cavorted in the shallows of the Lake, pausing only briefly to urinate and defecate into the waters. StarLaughter watched fascinated, WolfStar appalled, although he treasured the time it drew the Demons’ attentions from him. He sat carefully on the ground, bent protectively over the arm wrapped about his belly, leaning heavily on the other. Every so often he glanced at the boy—he could not think of this creature as his son, even though his colouring and features were so much like his—as also at Niah.

Niah! If WolfStar had not believed it would call unwanted attention to him, he would have bent his head and wept at his own stupidity.

Now the Demons had ceased their prancing and defecating and stood still in water deep enough to lap against their bellies.

One by one the Demons began to tremble. They stared into the Lake, their noses almost touching the water, completely rigid save for the curious quivering that wracked their bodies. The trembling increased by the moment until it
seemed as though they were in the final moments of some massive, hysteric convulsion…and yet still they stared down into the depths of the Lake.

The water changed.

It happened so subtly, and yet so swiftly, that WolfStar was not sure at what point the Lake ceased being a liquid and turned, instead, to glass. Emerald glass that trapped the Demons’ legs and, in Sheol’s case, her pendulous udders.

Still the Demons convulsed, the bodies a blur as their muscles spasmed faster than should have been possible, and the convulsions quickly transferred themselves to the glass.

It cracked, and then the entire surface of the Lake shattered into millions of tiny pieces. A great wind arose from beyond the ridge of the crater, and swept down over the Lake’s surface.

The glass pieces turned to dust, whipped up into a maelstrom against which WolfStar had to screw his eyes closed and hide his face under an arm. He wanted to reach out for Niah, to shelter her against this murderous whirlwind of millions of razor-edged glass pieces, but he was not able to fight its force, and could only concentrate all his strength on protecting his own body against its fury.

StarDrifter and Isfrael, protected by Drago’s enchantment, watched silently. Tears streamed down their faces, and Isfrael reached out and leaned a hand on his grandfather’s shoulder.

Who comforted who, neither knew, but both drew strength from the physical contact. A piercing scream rose on the shoulders of the wind, growing in intensity and density until it seemed as if it filled the entire world.

It was the Lake, dying, and weeping in its death.

On the ridge, the woman wailed with it, and sank to her knees, tearing at her hair with her hands.

Almost as suddenly as it had arrived, the whirling maelstrom vanished, and WolfStar blinked, cleared away the glass shards that had embedded themselves in his eyelashes and hair, and stared out at what had once been the Lake.

All traces of water and glass had gone, and the Demons—now back to their humanoid forms and attired again in innocent pastel robes—pointed and exclaimed excitedly.

What had once been a Lake was now a garden, but a garden such as WolfStar had never seen previously.

It was a garden snatched from the darkest pits of the AfterLife, a wasteland, an abomination. The ground, gradually rising to a small hillock in what had once been the centre of the Lake, was cracked and scarred, bare-baked earth with no grass, no life, and no hope of life. Trees stood bare-branched and blackened, as if consumed in some ancient conflagration that they’d never recovered from. Rambling roses hung from trees and rusted trellises, their leaves and blossoms only a distant memory, flowering instead with needled thorns that reached out like traps.

The centre hillock was barren, save for a windstorm that spun around and around on its crest, thick with dust and the thick, thorny tendrils of a rose bush.

“Movement,” Sheol said with immense satisfaction. “Come.”

StarLaughter tugged at WolfStar’s chain, but he’d been ready for her, and rose and stumbled forward before she cut off his breathing. Mot and Barzula seized the boy and girl, throwing them over their shoulders, and striding into the wasteland with no mind for the thorns that reached out to scratch and mar.

WolfStar could not be so disdainful. He cried out each time a thorn hooked into his flesh, sometimes becoming so entangled in thorns that StarLaughter—the thorns appeared to completely ignore her—had to tug with all her strength to pull him free. By the time they approached the hillock he was covered in bloody scratches, and his wings had suffered so badly they were almost completely defeathered.